It's clear to everyone that he has been fired. Otherwise they would have let him resign by himself.

Saying "we have been planning for is for Terry Myerson to pursue his next chapter outside Microsoft" is a stab in the back. Not only did they show him the way to out but they also gave him a kick in the ass while on the way out.

"Fired" is such a loaded word. There are many reasons for a company to want someone to leave, and not all of them necessarily "negative."

Off the top of my head, when the oil and gas market dipped in 2014, tons of great engineers lost their jobs because the companies simply didn't have work for them. Or a CEO that's really good at 5-50 startups simply not being a good fit for scaling 50-100 and upwards of 1000s of employees. Etc.

Trust me. He has been pushed out forcefully. Otherwise he would have resigned to "spend more time with his family".

To me, 'resigned to spend more time with his family' sounds like corp-speak for 'had a mental breakdown', or, 'succumbed to alcoholic dementia'.