Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer speaks at a Microsoft event in San Francisco, Wednesday, June 26, 2013. Ballmer, who helped build Microsoft into a technology empire and then struggled to prevent it from crumbling under his own leadership, will retire within the next 12 months. The world's biggest software company did not name a successor. Microsoft Corp.'s stock shot up 9 percent in premarket trading following the news. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
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