Worker ‘rigged’ HP Superdome benchmarks

In February this year, Queen Carly Fiorina blamed a botched channel re-organisation for plummeting HP Unix server sales.

Worst hit was the high-end 9000 series, where the company's new Superdome Unix server, launched in January, failed to hit the mark with customers. And at $400,000+ a pop, it doesn't take too many failures to close deals, before the beancounters start sweating. HP's turnover from the server segment represented by Superdome fell 54 per cent year-on-year, in short, a disaster.

But maybe the direct v. channel deathmatch was not to blame after all.

This week, HP cried foul over rigged Superdome TPC-C benchmarks which cranked out much worse performance ratings than the machine actually delivered.

In a lawsuit, the company accuses an employee - now fired - of sabotaging the tests. The false results cost millions of dollars in company resources and lost sales, HP claims.

The ex-employee is accused of trying to cover his traces, by reformatting computer disks, cutting cables to a test computer and altering logs. HP is claiming unspecified damages from Hock-Beng Lim, and that he "give up any money he may have made by boosting sales of competitors' products", AP reports.

Click here for the real HP Superdome benchmarks. ®