Microsoft is saved! But the CEO sweepstakes rage on

It seems I’ve been overlooked as the next Microsoft CEO in favor of Satya Nadella, whom I mentored in business strategy during our forced rehabilitation at Sing Sing. He was a little too quiet back then, but he could make a mean batch of toilet wine.

I’m somewhat mollified by the email Satya sent to employees yesterday, which made Microsoft’s news site so that fodder-rabid columnists like me would link to it. The email was designed to be inspirational and calming to Microsoft employees, to soothe their fear of new leadership selling their particular division to Google or Kim Jong-Un. The letter succeeds because it has all the right characteristics of a good inspirational CEO crowning.

First, it’s long enough to numb the mind, throws a shout-out to a defeated rival (not me, unfortunately), brims with plenty of backhanded hubris like “my thirst for knowledge,” and talks in depth and with much enthusiasm and buzzwordiness about Microsoft’s future without actually saying anything. The only real insight into the new Microsoft CEO you’ll get from this missive is that he seems to have an inordinate affection for the one-sentence paragraph.

It’s a grammatically incorrect device designed to emphasize a particular point, Satya.

You should use it sparingly.

Really.

Microsoft’s upward spiral

A lot of pundits and analysts think that Satya’s promotion is the first — or at least the latest — sign of Microsoft’s impending doom. They’re probably right. After all, the company has been pumping out multi-billion-dollar profits for only three decades and is obviously on its way to irrelevance in all its newest product categories, like cloud, services, mobile devices, and game consoles. It’s not at all crawling inexorably to market dominance in any of those areas.

Really.

But it’s time for me to face the music: Though I was truly the best candidate for the Redmond tippy-top boss man position, I was beaten out by someone with more experience and business savvy, paltry traits at best when compared to my talents at word weaving and liquid aristology (look it up). This begs the question that must be weighing on the minds of millions.

What’s next for Cringely?

Thanks but no thanks, Amazon

Surely, now that I’ve been in not-at-all imagined contention for a CEO position running a major multinational corporation, other job offers will start flooding in. I’ve opened an IaaS account with AWS just to handle the additional storage I’ll need when my inbox begins to grow exponentially. I would’ve opened it with Azure, but that ship sailed. Besides, I’m probably on the short list for Bezos’ job when he’s ousted after one of his demonic flying spider-drones strafes a school yard — best to start showing solidarity now.

However, I can’t limit myself to Amazon as a potential target for my future C-suite. I need to carefully consider my best possibilities with other massive technology companies that will obviously fail soon without the wise, innovative, scotch-glass-laden hand of Cringely to guide them.

Form a line to the throne

Apple is an obvious front-runner. When it comes to innovation, Apple’s definitely being slaughtered. The iPhone and iPad franchises will probably die out this year in favor of other devices with the features people really need, like flexi-frames, pocket-defying form factors, and personal GPS target indicators to ease the path for NSA assassination drones. I need to jump in there soon, acquire Scentee and Sony, and turn the iPhone into a smell-enabled PSP so that teenagers can sniff the cordite when they’re playing Grand Theft Auto.

Instant multibillions.

Another likely C(ringely)EO possibility is T-Mobile. Sure, it’s doing spectacularly right now — on paper. But its board must be yearning for a more traditional CEO that looks the part wearing custom suits and Harvard ties, while conducting meetings with a crystal whiskey glass in his hand. I can fulfill only one of those qualifications, but that’s more than Legere’s doing today. Plus, when consumers figure out that the no-contracts thing is a complete smokescreen, T-Mobile’s value will plunge and I’ll save it by secretly acquiring J.K. Rowling for immediate steady revenue, backing Clay Aiken for Congress, and exploiting Net neutrality like Verizon to ensure future world dominance.

Instant telecomm success.

If all else fails, I’ve decided my safety CEO slot will be with Uber. The current CEO, Travis Kalanick, has offended his customers, taken advantage of dangerously inclement weather conditions for blatant price gouging, taught his employees to flout the law, and worse. The company could hire Lindsay Lohan, and she’d be an immediate improvement even with the ankle tracker. I’d be deified after I changed the company’s focus to a more honorable pursuit — say, human trafficking for legally questionable cloning experiments — and sold everything to Halliburton.

Instant military contract billions.

Google will probably call when that Glass thing dumps and it loses more money than the guy who bet everything on Broncos Super Bowl merchandise. Facebook will need someone when Zuckerberg hits puberty and discovers that money can attract women. Oracle will definitely call when Ellison becomes a full-time regatta cheating consultant. Or if I really need a challenge, I can head up PR for the NSA. I hear the current director is a little stressed. Overall, the future is bright and the business world is ripe for a Cringely ascension into the executive suite.

Any executive suite.

Please.

Pammy insisted I take out a huge life insurance policy last week. She said it was to protect the family we never talk about starting, but I woke up last night to find her scrolling through hit man classifieds on Silk Road. She said she was just doing research for her new one-woman Broadway show, “How to Make Millions Even Though Your Partner’s a Journalist,” but I’m worried. If I’m going to keep her happy, I need to take the first step toward getting one of those post-CEO $100 million contracts for sitting in an office thinking up stuff, then writing it down. I’d be good at that.