It’s one last hurrah for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today in downtown Seattle.
About 13,000 Microsoft employees are flocking to Key Arena this morning for the annual company meeting. This year’s big internal get-together is particularly notable because it is the final company-wide meeting for Ballmer, who set to depart within the year after announcing last month that he was stepping down as CEO of the Redmond software giant.
https://twitter.com/hannes_brt/status/383258881243090944
https://twitter.com/kemalettin/status/383294558471069696
Some stats on today’s meeting:
- About 13,000 are at Key Arena and Microsoft expects more than 25,000 to be watching via webcast
- There were 220 busses filled to capacity that transported people from the Redmond campus to Key Arena today
- 9,000 arrived via Microsoft shuttles
The Twitter stream showed a seriously long line to get into the arena, which has a capacity of about 17,459.
https://twitter.com/marcind/status/383260836346609665
https://twitter.com/rebeccalrowland/status/383262926573805569
It also caused some traffic problems for Thursday morning commuters:
https://twitter.com/SashRocks/status/383256613257097216
And apparently there was some rapping going on involving Windows Azure:
https://twitter.com/RandallWBrown/status/383272014158389249
Meanwhile back on the Microsoft campus, conference rooms are available.
https://twitter.com/obiwanjr/status/383290202426331136
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:15 A.M. PST with attendance numbers from Microsoft