Failing to live up to the job can carry a heavy price in any profession - except that of IT industry chief executive, it seems. And while Carleton S Fiorina is no doubt very unhappy to have been jettisoned by the HP board last week, the terms of her severance package will no doubt cheer her up a bit. The golden handshake/bullion-backstabbing handed out in Fiorina’s case amounts to $14m, plus another few million accounted for by things like, say, untaken leave. And, as the official SEC filing from HP goes on to detail, on top of this plentiful bounty Fiorina will enjoy one other lucrative fringe benefit. She can keep her laptop, and enjoy three months tech support. So that's one dude who won't need a Dell for a while yet...

14 Feb 2005