Under Ballmer’s leadership, the company developed successful products like Windows XP and the Xbox 360. Microsoft grew to be worth $78bn and employ more than 100,000 people; it has more than a billion users and remains immensely profitable. Its profit last quarter was nearly $5 billion, compared with $3.2 billion for Google and $6.9 billion for Apple.

However over the past decade the company’s shares got stagnated with the meteoric rise of rivals like Apple, Google and Amazon. Once the most valuable company has lost more than half of its market value.  Critics accused Ballmer of failing to anticipate the explosive growth in tablets and Smartphones which made PCs redundant.

Last month Ballmer did a massive reshuffle in the management to increase the company’s ante in the field of mobile devices and web services. However the company showed little improvement even after the big effort by the Ballmer.

He wrote an emotional note to the employees, "I take this step in the best interests of the company I love; it is the thing outside of my family and closest friends that matters to me most."

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