Capellas: HP's white knight in waiting?

After being flattened by the flu for most of the last week, I'm finally returning to something resembling a human being. Word to the wise: If anyone in your office happens to be sneezing, coughing, and otherwise blithely infectious, send them home -- NOW!

I'll have some reflections to share on last week's Fiorina dumping later on but the Mike Capellas scenario has really caught my attention. As most folks likely heard this morning, Verizon is buying MCI for $6.7 billion and that means Senior Capellas will eventually be quite available to take on a new assignment.

Capellas could be HP's dream candidate to take over as CEO. A former CIO who ran the show at Compaq after Eckhard Pfeiffer got bounced, he knows how to talk with the geeks -- a big bonus should he wind up at HP with its engineer-heavy corporate culture. Also, he he knows how to handle Wall Street having now sold two companies in multi-billion dollar deals. What's more, Capellas has experience in turnaround situations, cleaning up a scandal-ridden mess that was handed to him when he took the reins at MCI.

The question is how long Verizon will force Capellas to hang around before he rides off in the sunset. No way he remains the rest of his working life as second banana to Ivan Seidenberg. Terms of the deal will require Capellas to stay for a while to help manage MCI's transition. Naturally HP can't afford to wait too long. But if Capellas can negotiate around that potential obstacle, then he automatically becomes the odds-on fave' to get the nod as new CEO. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board for the search committee at HP.