Microsoft this week bids farewell to Kevin Johnson, the now former president of its platforms and services division. During Johnson's tenure, many thought he would one day succeed CEO Steve Ballmer, and together the two of them played a major role in the company's pursuit of Yahoo.

This isn't the first deflection in recent times, as earlier this year Senior VP Steven Berkowitz announced plans to leave Microsoft by the end of the summer. And with Bill Gates having gone into semi-retirement, the face of Microsoft is beginning to look much different than it did just one year ago.

Johnson's announcement comes on the eve of Microsoft's annual financial analyst meeting, a time when most companies would want to cast themselves in the best possible light. Johnson's departure after 16 years of service throws a kink into those plans, particularly since Microsoft already finds itself under scrutiny over its proposed online strategy that would have it spending $6 billion a year. "Some much clearer, detailed picture of where this money is being spent is absolutely necessary," wrote Charles Di Bona of BernsteinResearch. Of course, Microsoft can (and probably will) tout its $60 bilion in revenue for the fiscal year, making it much easier to divert attention away from any exodus among top level brass.

In an ironic twist, Johnson will land at Juniper Networks as the new CEO, the same company who lost one of its former CEOs, Stephen Elop, to Microsoft back in January. Touché?

Image Credit: Microsoft

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