Former HP exec Mark Hurd hired as Oracle co-president
Oracle announced the news late Monday. The hiring adds yet another layer to an already drama-filled Silicon Valley saga.
In early August, HP ousted Hurd amid allegations of financial misconduct and sexual harassment. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a close friend of Hurd's, criticized the decision by comparing the situation to when Jobs, Ellison's "best friend," was forced out of Apple in the 1980s.
"The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago," Ellison wrote. "That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them."
By first defending then hiring Hurd, Ellison has now "put his money where his controversial mouth is," wrote Ashlee Vance of The New York Times. Hurd will replace Charles E. Phillips Jr. as co-president. Earlier this year, Phillips admitted to having an affair after a woman he had been seeing made details of their relationship public.
Hurd had been widely praised for his work at HP, where he grew the company into the largest PC maker in the U.S.
In his new role, Hurd will oversee "sales, marketing and software support."
31 Comments
Yeah, Hurd did a great job at HP. He was somewhat low key compared to his predecessor Carley Florina who did nothing for HP. She bought Compaq which nearly sank HP. Oracle did right in grabbing Hurd.
despite his little incident there at the end he was in fact a good leader at HP, i guess it does help to have friends high up
I always love that title: Co-President.
Hollywood companies love to use it because everybody wants to be president.... instead of Senior Executive Vice President.
Mactel wrote: Hurd did a great job at HP.
Techapocalypse wrote: ...he was in fact a good leader at HP...
I really can't understand why folks are excited and supportive of this? Hurd's only accomplishment at HP was to slash and burn. How many thousands of employees laid off? How many projects canceled? Sure, he made a bunch of very short term moves that made Wall Street fond of him but he basically undermined everything in place for the longer term. He raped the company for tens of millions and a diamond-studded golden parachute while doing nothing for existing products or the workforce. Am I pissed? You bet I am. Hewlett, Packard, Young, and Platt made that company into a savvy outfit that had better core values before Carly Fornia grabbed the CEO spot and utterly failed, then gave way to this creep Hurd of Cattle. Larry Ellison needs to reflect on who his bosom buddies are.
Whatever happened to Ann Livermore? She would have been much better than Carly and Hurd.
Yes, I know Jobs is great friends with Larry, and no, I'm not going to cite sources. You can easily find that info on the web.
I think Hurd did good, if nothing spectacular. He needed to right the wavering HP ship after the mess he inherited from Fiorina. He's a brick-and-mortar operations kind of guy, not the flashy and charismatic guys like Ellison and Jobs. I think this is a good move on Ellison's part. His two co-presidents Philips and Catz are from a banking/financial industry background. With Hurd replacing Phillips, Oracle now has the right guy who understands the hardware aspect of the business, which Oracle now has to contend with after acquiring Sun.
HP is a both a big competitor and a big partner (coopetition) to Oracle. After all, Oracle and HP share one big common enemy: IBM. Hurd brings excellent insight and operational savvy that Oracle has lacked as they now tackle hardware and related businesses that they acquired from Sun. As an ORCL shareholder, I'm pretty stoked about this. I can't say that I was too happy about Oracle's acquisition of Sun as Oracle has absolutely no experience in hardware, but with Hurd on board I'm feeling much better about how Oracle will manage Sun's assets.
I know that Oracle is hated by a lot in this industry and Ellison has made his share of goofball moves in the past, but they've done very well overall. By the way, the other co-president Safra Catz is another key figure in Oracle's growth and success over the past decade or so. She is one smart cookie. She's the one maintaining the financial discipline at Oracle. She's done a tremendous job of integrating all the companies that Oracle has acquired over the past decade. I love smart women.
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/p...ex-070733.html