To everyone's surprise Steve Ballmer announced his retirement from Microsoft, something that will happen during the next 12 months, as soon as the transition to a new CEO is completed. Ballmer has sent an email to everyone at MS where he states his love for the company and that this is the right time for change.
Although Ballmer has kept Microsoft profitable during the last decade (he's taken over from Bill Gates in 2000), there are an increasing number of concerns about his ability to lead MS into a new era. There have a lot of mistakes in this past decade (remember Kin?) and the way MS let itself out of the mobile race is... appalling to say the least (and Windows RT doesn't seem to have a bright future either). The stocks went up nearly 10% after this announcement, which shows exactly that the time is indeed right for Ballmer to step down.
Now, the big question is: who will be next at MS's helm? Whoever it may be, he/she will certainly have a hard time ahead: Windows Phone is timidly and slowly chipping away at iOS and Android dominance; Windows 8 is failing to convince consumers (and enterprises and saying "no way" to it); Windows RT - well... we know how that is going; and even the Xbox One will have to prove itself against the PS4, after disastrous announcement events that made it look far worse than it actually was. Let's see how the new CEO will handle all that.
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