I love reading Jean-Louis Gassée. He has a remarkable ability to beautifully and concisely explain things in the world of technology (he probably could do it with any subject).
His latest post is about Microsoft’s CEO search, now that Ballmer is out:

For a large, established company, having to use an executive recruiter to find its next CEO carries a profoundly bad aroma. It means that the directors failed at one of their most important duties: succession planning. Behind this first failure, a second one lurks: The Board probably gave the previous CEO free rein to promote and fire subordinates in a way that prevented successors from emerging.
I still contend it’s going to get worse for Microsoft before it gets better.