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Over the last few months, Ebay (Nasdaq:EBAY) Meg Whitman has been quietly going about preparing the company for her leaving it, says the Wall Street Journal Online, citing people close to the matter.

She's evidently been passing more and more responsibility to her underlings, and although it's expected a decision on when she'll be leaving could come within the next few weeks, the transition remains open and not on a specific timetable.

The company has struggled over the last four years, and the stock price hasn't made any gains at all during that time.

Sources say the leading person to replace Whitman as CEO is the president of the company's auction business, John Donahoe.
 
While those close to the situation say the timing is of Whitman's own choosing, the question of whether there's been pressure from shareholders definitely has to be asked, with four years of poor share price performance by the company.

Even so, Whitman has said in the past that she believed a CEO shouldn't stay around a company for more than ten years, as both the company and the CEO needs new insights and challenges from different voices. As of March 2008, Whitman will have been at Ebay for 10 years.

At the time Whitman joined the company, Ebay had 30 people working for them. Quite amazing when you look at the company which now employs about 15,000 workers and generated just under $6 billion in 2007.

Since the initial public offering of the company in 1998, Whitman has led the company to 40 straight quarters of revenue growth, although as I said, they've still struggled for several years. It's still a great accomplishment by Whitman in spite of that.

One of the major mistakes under her leadership was the acquisition of skype, which has been a problem from the day they got it. They had to write-down $1.4 billion last year from that mistake.

For Whitman herself, she won't have to worry about money, a recent Forbes estimate puts her wealth at somewhere around $1.4 billion.