Steve Ballmer will soon leave the Redmond-based tech giant

Jan 2, 2014 07:40 GMT  ·  By

One of the most important moments of 2013 took place on August 23 when Microsoft officially announced that CEO Steve Ballmer would soon leave, as the company continues its transformation into a devices and services firm.

Ballmer will thus retire when a successor is found, with people familiar with the matter saying that cloud boss Satya Nadella is in pole-position to take over the seat.

As you can see in this video, Steve Ballmer got all emotional during his last meeting with Microsoft employees, bursting into tears while shouting “thank you” towards the audience.

Ballmer is clearly a Microsoft fanatic and although he might not be the right man to head the company, there is no doubt that he took his job very seriously.

Of course, his love for Microsoft is not enough to help him continue the company’s job to long-term profitability, so it remains to be seen whether his successor would have what it takes to continue this forward thinking approach.