Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Says Goodbye: Who’s Taking Over?

As CEO Steve Ballmer gets ready to leave his beloved Microsoft this year, the hunt is on for a new head of one of the largest, most respected companies in the world. One of the frontrunners for the position is Alan Mulally, who is currently the head of Ford Motor Co., but with Ballmer still active in Microsoft, a replacement has yet to be announced.

Today was definitely an exciting day for Microsoft employees, with a potentially record breaking number of employees coming out to see Ballmer at the last Microsoft company-wide meeting that he will ever lead. More than 13,000 Microsoft employees signed up to attend Ballmer's address.

Ballmer's Goodbye

During the meeting, Ballmer presented the usual corporate material, but near the end, he broke into a tearful farewell. Ballmer -- who is well-known for his yelling and jumping -- even got up and danced to Michael Jackson's "Wanna be Startin' Somethin'" during the event.

Just trying to get into the event appeared to be a struggle as Microsoft employees such as Bob Ulrich tried to enter the meeting area. Ulrich tweeted: "Must be the year to go to the @Microsoft company meeting. Insane line."

Even though it took a while for people to get in, the employees who were able to attend likely felt it was worth the extra effort. Ballmer slowly cried as he ended the event stating, "I've had the time of my life," with the Dirty Dancing song playing in the background.

Could Ford's CEO Take Over Microsoft?

Now that Ballmer is leaving and plans to be be completely removed from the company by 2014, Microsoft needs to find his replacement. According to reports from people close to the Ford CEO and Microsoft, Mulally is now considering the CEO position at Microsoft.

Even though earlier analysis of potential CEOs led people...