If HP's erstwhile CEO, Carleton Fiorina, feels like sobbing as she contemplates life after ink cartridges, she can blow her nose on a golden parachute worth roughly $45m.

As well as existing stock options, a cash payout of $14m, plus $7.38m in other bonuses, Carly gets to keep her computer, with three months of tech support. She'll get home security for a year, six months of administrative support, and $50,000 towards financial counselling and help with finding a new job.

When Fiorina joined HP in 1999, charged with shaking up the company, she received a $3m signing bonus and 5.8m stock options. These are now worth substantially less than the $65.5m they represented when she signed the deal, following the dot com stock market crash and the continuing drop in HP's share price. Nonetheless, their face value of around $18m is better than a kick in the teeth.

During her tenure with the company her salary averaged $1.2m, and her bonuses have topped $1.5m in total.

It is not recorded whether the severance package includes hair maintenance services. At the outset of her HP career, Fiorina was rumoured to travel with a personal hair stylist, a claim she always denied.

Reuters has more here (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=7627716&type=technologyNews). ®

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