Big days of change are clearly ahead for Microsoft. The Board of Directors has some big decisions to make as the largest activist investors are applying pressure to see their particular agenda enacted.

The main issue is that Ballmer himself is leaving Microsoft in the next 12 months — he offered a tearful goodbye to employees at last week’s annual companywide meeting — and finding a new CEO to execute such a dramatic shift in the company’s strategy while maintaining its existing 16 billion-dollar businesses will be no easy task.

That task has been made substantially more difficult in recent days by activist investors — reports surfaced last week that a group made up of “three of the top 20 investors” was pushing for Ford CEO Alan Mulally to take over the top spot, and yesterday news leaked that Microsoft’s board was seriously considering him. At the same time, “three of the top 20 investors” were also credited yesterday with pushing to remove Bill Gates from the Microsoft board, which he currently chairs. That would include his removal from the CEO search committee, which is presumably moving forward on the Mulally recommendation at the same time. None of that feels particularly suited to a smooth transition.

Every time I hear someone complaining about Apple’s lack of innovation or pending doom or the crime of having too much cash, I just think about Microsoft, Dell, and Blackberry and thank heavens for Tim Cook and the rest of the team.