Voodoo deal so mum "even INQ didn't know"

IT WAS ALWAYS A possibility that when Dell picked up Alienware, the other big shoe was going to drop. And sure enough, HP last night disclosed its agreement to buy Voodoo.

In an excellent blog entry explaining the tortuous tale -- 2,700 words! Come and work here if you get fed up with people listening in to your calls -- founder Rahul Sood even finds time to cuff the Inquirer with the gentlest of back-handed compliments: "Let's just say this was the best-kept secret in the industry, even those at the Inquirer hadn't a clue what was going on (sorry guys)."

Turns out that HP met Voodoo at last year's Tour De France, before Sood received the famous call from Michael Dell to which we have referred in an earlier story. He'd always liked the cut of the HP jib and Mark Hurd had brought in great people and a new culture. Voodoo gets the keys to unlimited R&D and a way to supercharge its gaming PCs so everybody is happy. Good luck to all. µ