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Businesses HP Oracle News

Former HP CEO Selected As Oracle Co-President 133

theodp writes "Late on Monday, Oracle announced that ousted HP CEO Mark Hurd has joined the company as a co-president and a director. Hurd resigned from HP a month ago, after an investigation by the board into a personal relationship with a contractor turned up questionable expenses. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a personal friend of Hurd, criticized HP's board at the time, saying it was 'the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs.' 'Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle,' Ellison said in a statement Monday. 'There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark.' Stepping down to make room for Hurd was Charles E. Phillips Jr., who had some personal relationship issues of his own."
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Former HP CEO Selected As Oracle Co-President

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Getting laid by more than one woman is not an issue :) It's a blessing.

  • by MogNuts ( 97512 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:23AM (#33496872)

    Hey you gotta give it to the man. Larry Ellison puts his money where his mouth is (when saying HP made the worst decision ever in firing him).

    • by helix2301 ( 1105613 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:38AM (#33496952) Homepage
      Ellison has no problem saying how he feels he is at a point in his career he says what he wants and does what he wants. Mark Hurd will do a great job at Oracle good acquisition by Larry Ellison.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @08:10AM (#33497174)

        ...........,,,,,,,,

        There are some extra periods and commas I had laying around. If you need more, I'm sure others have extras too.

        • please feel free to help yourself i also have problems with sentence construction and i have some capital letters if you think they would be useful to start sentences and proper nouns .,ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          Laying 2 women at one time, he'd have twice the periods he used to have!

          • by turgid ( 580780 )

            Lay lady, lay,
            Lay me an egg for breakfast.
            Stay lady, stay,
            Cook me the egg for breakfast.

            Do I win the internet? Can I also get to be a 1960s hippy?

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by MrSenile ( 759314 )

          Dealing with a multi woman relationship, I doubt he'll need the extra periods.

      • by Migala77 ( 1179151 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @08:12AM (#33497194)

        Mark Hurd will do a great job at Oracle good acquisition by Larry Ellison.

        According to an article at TechCrunch [techcrunch.com], he didn't do too well at HP: "Word on the street is Hurd wasn’t let go for his affair or even for his embellishment of trivial expense reports. Instead the board kicked him out because his employee approval rating was absolutely atrocious."

        • by arivanov ( 12034 )

          In that case they would be the first technical company to remember the very few simple maxima:

          1. A manager delivers through his subordinates. Screw them once, twice, thrice and at the end the result is that you are no longer able to deliver.
          2. If staff is considered a "resource" than the manager is doubly so.

          To be honest, I find that difficult to believe in. If that is indeed the case in HP some deep drilling is on order. It should be possible to counteract global warming by pumping heat into the frozen dep

          • by VolciMaster ( 821873 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @09:08AM (#33497632) Homepage

            In that case they would be the first technical company to remember the very few simple maxima:

            1. A manager delivers through his subordinates. Screw them once, twice, thrice and at the end the result is that you are no longer able to deliver. 2. If staff is considered a "resource" than the manager is doubly so.

            To be honest, I find that difficult to believe in. If that is indeed the case in HP some deep drilling is on order. It should be possible to counteract global warming by pumping heat into the frozen depth of Hell.

            You must have never worked at HP, then - the overall employee morale is extremely low (at least in the US, Romania, Spain, and UK, where I've directly interacted (and worked) before). A complete lack of focus on customer support for enterprise products, refusal to try to keep senior engineers and support staff, and the list goes on.

            • by Cheeko ( 165493 )

              I would be one of those senior engineers who jumped ship about 2 years ago.

              Operational efficiency is great and all, and I cashed out a bunch as the stock price rose, but it was a MISERABLE place to work after a while. Every day wondering if your division (regardless of your personal performance) would be axed in the name of efficiency. Seeing the best and brightest in the various teams you interact with leaving in droves (sales, marketing, engineering that I knew). Seeing best in breed products axed in f

              • And I saw them awe or "encourage" most of the acquisitionees from the company I worked-for when we were bought in 2007. By now, 60-70% of them have left.
        • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @09:38AM (#33497860)

          "Doing well" is relative. He fired people and cut pay, so the company is crippled. Now the people who knew how the business and apps run either work for someone else, or don't care. The stock went up 40% under him, however. So "doing well" depends on your point of view.

          He knew how to run a company in the short term, which is what Oracle is best at. Minor improvements to a largely crappy product with expensive upgrade costs. Great business model, unless you want to retain customers. That's the Hurd way, that's the Ellison way. Neither is very good at long term planning. Ellison has gotten lucky so far, in the same way Bill Gates got lucky - he's now embedded in so many places it would be almost impossible to stop the gravy train. The product can suck donkey balls and have poor management tools, but it's stuck and will keep getting upgraded until it works.

          Same as Bill Gates, Larry has a bunch of customers using the product that don't like it very much. Or they don't know that better options exist. And Hurd's employees felt the same way - either they hate the company (low morale) or they don't know anything different. A lot of coworkers are keeping their jobs solely because people are not hiring unemployed people. They know that the first people to go are probably the scrubs, so if you retained your position you're probably worth hiring. At this point, people would rather suffer than have an employment gap in their history, so we spend the extra hours to make up for the loss of intellectual capital and manpower.

          It makes employee productivity look great, and makes the expenses of keeping the firees look unnecessary, but we're not delivering what we could deliver. And I think the HP board was starting to see that. Even a product company needs smart people to come up with ways to market and sell, and all companies need R&D, so you have to value your employees as assets. A Starbucks location with expensive rent could look like an expense to be cut, but if it keeps your profits up it's probably better to keep it. Same with expensive employees. Mark looks at numbers.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            Frankly, I'm kind of amazed that Microsoft hasn't been able to make stronger inroads with SQL Server in more of the Oracle shops.

            Yeah, you can't run SQL Server on anything but Windows, but honestly, 90% of the big businesses I have personally seen using Oracle are running it on Windows anyway.

            Microsoft should seem like a big, stable, sueable-in-case-of-catastrophe kind of company to all the same kinds of managers who would be scared to death of adopting an Open Source solution even in the cases in which the

            • Actually Oracle DBAs advocate because few environments are as robust as the one Oracle provides. Basically Oracle sets the bar for what people think should be included in a RDBMS. SQL server has improved performance dramatically to where it is beginning to be competitive. MySQL is non-starter as it doesn't compete with Oracle. Postgresql is probably the best free alternative option containing a lot of the features that modern applications require although it still lags in performance when compared with Orac

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                I'd argue two things:

                Yes, Oracle is robust, but it's a level of robustness 99% of business applications don't actually need. Basically, Oracle is perenially successful at the equivalent of selling soccer moms who want to take their kids to practice and haul groceries home formula one race cars (complete with pit crew) instead of used minivans.

                Performance-wise, at some point and in most cases, you can close the gap by throwing more/faster hardware at the problem -- and usually this is still ridiculously che

                • While your right that the majority of applications won't use the majority of functionality Oracle is positioned as a core app and so as the company grows so too does the demand for more functionality.

                  Most people I've encountered aren't interested in throwing more hardware at a problem if they don't have to. The more servers you run the more you have to maintain. The VM world has made this much much better but it's still an issue.

                  Additionally Oracle licensing isn't quite as bad as you make it out to be. Or

                  • While your right that the majority of applications won't use the majority of functionality Oracle is positioned as a core app and so as the company grows so too does the demand for more functionality.

                    And yet, most of the Fortune 500 companies I've worked for still don't have a genuine need for what Oracle brings to the table.

                    I think there are legitimate cases for Oracle, but people are sold it based on the theory that they will probably have one of those cases sooner or later, while my experience suggests

                    • My evidence is from the fact that I don't just use Oracle, I also use MS SQL and MySQL. PostGresql from what I've read is quite stable but lacks in performance.

                      Also, in my experience people don't necessarily buy Oracle for the functionality as MS SQL usually wins on useful and accessible feature-sets. They buy Oracle because they can get it up and running and it has a habit of staying that way. No transaction logs ballooning for no apparent reason, I'm looking at you MSSQL. I'm the only DBA for the organiz

            • Frankly, I'm kind of amazed that Microsoft hasn't been able to make stronger inroads with SQL Server in more of the Oracle shops.

              This is because nobody trusts them, stability in the business world is very important. In today's world customer affecting is the buzz word, downtime, negative impact or data loss are all very bad publicity and this can damage a companies earnings quite significantly and many customers will vote with their feet in the higher tech areas.

              Yeah, you can't run SQL Server on anything but Windows, but honestly, 90% of the big businesses I have personally seen using Oracle are running it on Windows anyway.

              You and I have clearly seen very different BIG businesses, I would say out of 300+ databases my current company operate less than 5 are SQL Server databases.

              Microsoft should seem like a big, stable, sueable-in-case-of-catastrophe kind of company to all the same kinds of managers who would be scared to death of adopting an Open Source solution even in the cases in which they're clearly superior across the board.

              Certainly Microso

              • This is because nobody trusts them, stability in the business world is very important. In today's world customer affecting is the buzz word, downtime, negative impact or data loss are all very bad publicity and this can damage a companies earnings quite significantly and many customers will vote with their feet in the higher tech areas.

                Which is why roughly 100% of the Fortune 500 are running Windows and Office? Sorry, that argument doesn't hold water.

                You and I have clearly seen very different BIG businesse

            • Having worked in environments with both Oracle and MS SQL here are some of the personal reasons I know why Oracle is used more:
              1. Oracle runs on multiple platforms. As you pointed out MS SQL only runs on Windows. Businesses tend to deploy the same environment for production, QA, and development, but they might get away with running Oracle on Windows for development and QA only. If a company does not run mission critical applications on Windows (which is many of them), they're not going to run MS SQL. Pe
              • For example, a DBA should keep up with how much diskspace each database is taking. Warnings will show up on an Oracle DB when it reaches the limit. MS SQL just allows the DB to grow automatically. That seems more management friendly until the entire disk fills up (with no warning). Then it's more complicated to solve.

                You're doing it wrong.

                MS Support isn't great. From my experience (and your mileage may vary), though we had Enterprise Support, they were often slow to respond. It would sometimes take a week f

            • by guruevi ( 827432 )

              One of the reasons is indeed the Oracle DBA's not knowing anything else. But SQL Server is not the end-all of database solutions. I would classify it under Oracle and PostgreSQL. It's not only ridiculously expensive once you get to have more than one SQL Server machine or if you have a bunch of clients connecting to it but the licensing model is atrocious (you'll need a lawyer to figure out what it means) and once it goes towards maxing out your resources it collapses horribly onto itself (in part also beca

              • I'll give you this without a fight:

                a well-maintained Oracle will beat the crap out of SQL Server

                but I have never seen a real-world example in which this was even remotely true:

                and require less human resources.

                I've seen many small-midsize companies in which one DBA covered all of the company's MySQL or PostGre or SQL Server or even Sybase databases. I've never seen a company running Oracle out of dozens I've encountered in my career -- even very small companies -- on less than 3 Oracle DBAs, and usually a

        • Since when any board gives a fuck about how their employees feel like?
          • The fact is that a company's Board of Directors answers to the shareholders, not the employees. The shareholders elect... and unelect... the board. Employees don't. Right or wrong, that's reality.

            They know which side their bread is buttered on.

            And frankly, I'd MUCH rather the Board was elected by shareholders, who have a financial interest in the company's long term well-being even if it means rough times for the workers; at least the company will survive to continue to have those jobs years from now. I

            • by flex941 ( 521675 )

              And of course there could be no middle-ground.

            • You are right, employees are so incredibly stupid that they only think about bankrupting the company. After all, there are new jobs waiting around everywhere.

              Fortunately there is the shareholder, that superior human being, whose decisions are always right, like hiring overpaid CEOs that make shares go up in the short term by cutting R&D and other useless expenses. Before shit hits the fan, the shareholder will have cashed a huge sum of money selling his stock and doesn't give a rat's ass for the futu

    • by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @08:39AM (#33497426) Journal

      Well, yes, you gotta hand it to Larry. Whether it's using his money to basically bully those criticizing a pal for his defense of overt sexual discrimination (see, eg, http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/06/28/oracles_ceo_cancels_115m_gift_to_harvard/ [boston.com]), or rescuing a pal which was likely actually ditched for being an asshole all around and driving employee morale to new lows, it's up to Larry to don his superhero cape and come to the defense of pricks, assholes and bigots everywhere. Making the world safer for well-connected sociopaths and the ol' boys' club, one person at a time. You can practically imagine him flying away from a crime scene, wind blowing in his cape, with starry eyed housewives going, "Thank YOU Captain Asshole! Whatever would we have done without you?" ;)

      • No kidding.

        If Ellison isn't king of the douchebags, I'm not sure who would be. I weep for Java in his hands.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by msobkow ( 48369 )

      Yeah, he really put his money where his mouth is this time. Snapping up an experienced CEO and creating a new position for him just shows how much he is impressed by the guy.

      The fallout over at HP is well-deserved. You don't let someone go because of allegations -- you let them go because of convictions. Letting them go because of allegations is playing politics, not running a business.

      Personally I've thought HP/Compaq have been on the way down for some time now. While they used to build solid hard

      • by Surt ( 22457 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @08:59AM (#33497568) Homepage Journal

        Wait, so was it a good hire because he was let go over allegations rather than convictions, or a bad hire because he was head of HP during a period in which they 'have been on the way down for some time now'?

      • The fallout over at HP is well-deserved. You don't let someone go because of allegations -- you let them go because of convictions. Letting them go because of allegations is playing politics, not running a business.

        Uh, that's what HP did.

        Hurd's sexual harassment was alleged, yes.

        Hurd stealing from the company in the form of expensing stuff for his mistress under something else, however, isn't in question.

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The fallout over at HP is well-deserved. You don't let someone go because of allegations -- you let them go because of convictions. Letting them go because of allegations is playing politics, not running a business.

          Uh, that's what HP did.

          Hurd's sexual harassment was alleged, yes.

          Hurd stealing from the company in the form of expensing stuff for his mistress under something else, however, isn't in question.

          Most people seem to forget that part, and only focusing on the harassment. To me this proves he must have a really strong stupid streak. When you earn millions of dollars, why on earth do you risk misusing 20.000$ of company money on private entertainment of a woman you like. You earn enough to pay for a few hotel and restaurant bills yourself, for crying..

      • Cheers to that man, my last three server buys were custom builds because of the decline in HP quality. Doesn't help that when I actually do break down and call HP carepack I have to explain it to some guy that barely speaks English who then sends a tech who has no idea what he's doing. I always get the same tech which once had the audacity to just shut off power distro in a rack rather than just unplug the power to the server he was doing warranty work on. Ever since then I have to babysit him. I wish they

    • It's easy putting your money where you mouth is if you are: (a) very rich and (b) totally egotistical to the extent you cannot imagine you are wrong.
    • If he was making "questionable expenses", injuring the company to please his mistress, then maybe he's not so great after all. But it seems that, among CEOs, a little nepotism is OK...
    • by ti1ion ( 239188 )

      Not really. Larry "dial an intern" Ellison hires another guy who tried to get some on the side, big deal. The article (on Slashdot, no less) dealing with the HP/Hurd issue led me to a story about executives and how often they were removed from their position due to sex scandals. Interesting read. Larry has had quite a few liaisons of his own.

      • by MogNuts ( 97512 )

        This is a difficult issue. Yes I'm sure a lot of execs used their position, but don't put it past the millions of women who have used and extorted execs/celebrities/rich people for money. I would venture to say this day and age, in this realm, even if you live a squeaky clean life, you'll be accused of something so that you'll settle in court and they'll extort even a few million from you.

  • for *not* sexually harassing!

  • by scosco62 ( 864264 ) * on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:30AM (#33496892) Journal
    Is this a case of a "good old boys" club, where one of the insiders takes care of his buddy -or- He believe that Hurd is really that good.......sounds like the latter... This contractor thing is idiotic, both that a guy in such a position would get himself into such a ridiculous position - and that the board would make a big deal about it. I suspect that if they really wanted to keep him .... the whole thing would have just "gone away".... so there's some subtext here, somewhere.
    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I don't think being a good executive in some ways and thinking too much with your dick in other ways is mutually exclusive. It might be just be business in that Ellison sees him on "fire sale" and figure the PR hit is worth it...

    • Hurd has been so good in which way? He managed to squeeze a short term spike in profits by basically nuking the R&D budget. Essentially he's been selling the seed corn, to look like he's getting more results fast.

      Exactly how would that make him the right guy for Oracle? I'm open to the possibility that that might even be the case, but please explain how. Exactly what of all he's done at HP would tip Oracle off that he's probably the right guy to recruit for the top?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Well, databases are exactly a hot innovation area any longer. Oracle has been squeezing profits out by hook and crook for years. Maybe Hurd is just the guy to carry on that fine tradition. He knows how to run a tight ship as long as the ship is not going anywhere in particular.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:31AM (#33496896)

    Can't seem to login.
    Looks like if you are well connected you can get away with anything and land up plum jobs.
    Yes I know Mark Hurd did not break any law and he only cheated on his expense reports (That too I am sure was a mistake by his assistants).
    We as a society seem to be setting fine examples of acceptable behavior.

    • by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:35AM (#33496922) Journal

      As always - it's not what you know, it's who you know.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by amentajo ( 1199437 )

        As always - it's not who you know, it's whom you know.

      • Anyone who's heard of "networking" understands this. Why should top echelon CEOs be any different than Joe programmer getting a job through a friend of his?

      • "it's not what you know, its who knows you"
    • Can't seem to login.
      Looks like if you are well connected you can get away with anything and land up plum jobs.
      Yes I know Mark Hurd did not break any law and he only cheated on his expense reports (That too I am sure was a mistake by his assistants).
      We as a society seem to be setting fine examples of acceptable behavior.

      Being "well-connected" is practically part of the job description for a Fortune 500 CEO. Not because of crony-ism, but because of the need to leverage those relationships for the good of your company. So if Mark Hurd is "well-connected", that would mean that he actually is more valuable as CEO to a company like Oracle, especially because his connections are probably especially relevant to Oracle's industry. I'm guessing that "connections" for a CEO are like languages for a programmer - the more you have und

      • by Mongoose Disciple ( 722373 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @09:52AM (#33497976)

        So if Mark Hurd is "well-connected", that would mean that he actually is more valuable as CEO to a company like Oracle, especially because his connections are probably especially relevant to Oracle's industry.

        No kidding. You can't really sell Oracle, Peoplesoft, etc. on actual merit or return on investment, so connections are at a serious premium.

      • Being "well-connected" is the reason that CEOs are grossly overpaid to the determent of their companies and their shareholders.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tehcyder ( 746570 )

      Yes I know Mark Hurd did not break any law and he only cheated on his expense reports

      Where I come from (UK) "false accounting" is a criminal offence; also any normal employee would be fired for fiddling their expenses, on principle.

    • by butlerm ( 3112 )

      Mark Hurd did not break any law and he only cheated on his expense reports

      That is called fraud. It is more than enough to get people sent to jail in some cases.

    • by Fastball ( 91927 )

      Looks like if you are well connected you can get away with anything and land up plum jobs.

      Or, you know, just run for the U.S. Senate.

  • by Eternal Vigilance ( 573501 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:36AM (#33496938)
    It's the Three Stooges of executive sexual harassment.

    "Imagine those three on a business trip to, I don't know, Thailand." [fakesteve.net]

    "Hey Mark! I'm tryin' to think but nothin' happens! Nyuk nyuk nyuk."
  • Corporate cronyism at it's finest.
    • Corporate cronyism at it's finest.

      Nope. "Cronyism" is putting friends in positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications.

      Hurd's record as a CEO speaks for itself, like HP becoming number one in computers sales, and having its market share for printers increase significantly.

      He is also known for aggressive cost-cutting with massive layoffs, but that's actually another positive trait in a CEO.

      • by Mongoose Disciple ( 722373 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @09:54AM (#33498002)

        He is also known for aggressive cost-cutting with massive layoffs, but that's actually another positive trait in a CEO.

        Unless, of course, you're making your numbers for the quarter/year look good at the cost of cutting resources you can't easily replace that you'll need for long-term success.

        A number of people have alleged this is the case with Hurd; I don't know enough to say for sure either way.

        • He is also known for aggressive cost-cutting with massive layoffs, but that's actually another positive trait in a CEO.

          Unless, of course, you're making your numbers for the quarter/year look good at the cost of cutting resources you can't easily replace that you'll need for long-term success.

          A number of people have alleged this is the case with Hurd; I don't know enough to say for sure either way.

          Looking at the way companies are run today, I'm not sure long-term success is sought as much as short-term ones. Making the quarter/year books look good & investors happy & stocks rise, even if it is just for a while, seems good enough to qualify for a "Top Gun CEO" nomination.

      • Cronyism also includes creating a job specifically for a buddy.

  • Hmm. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That will go down fantastically well with Oracle's female employees I suspect.
    • That will go down fantastically well with Oracle's female employees I suspect.

      Especially this one [oracle.com].

    • Larry has been sued for sexual harassment by more than one of his personal secretaries. Any female employees that had a problem with sexual harassment would have left a long time ago!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:53AM (#33497044)
    Well at least Mark Hurd has demonstrated experience screwing people. With the way Oracle has been behaving of late (Java, OpenSolaris) this will probably be a great job asset....
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @07:55AM (#33497052)

    Hurd drove all of the R&D and creativity out of HP. As an HPer we competed with SUN alot but I always thought they had some great tech just not the ability to make money off of it. Hurd will just cut\cut\cut until there is nothing left. Guess it's not really a surprise as my guess Larry is just interested in buiolding massive Oracle solution on his own high margin hardware and nothing else....

    Thank god I survived the Hurd years at HP. I just hope we don't screw it up with another Hurd like CEO.

    • Yeah, from what I've heard from Oracle folks, seems like Hurd will be a "good fit", at least for the executive tier.

      Workers and customers? Not so much.

      It's actually pretty damn incestuous, given how in-bed-with-each-other HP and Oracle (DB, middleware, Peoplesoft) are, but if Ora is looking to keep all the money, I guess this is part of what you do to do that..

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Who do you think was worse: Fiorina or Hurd?

      • by Cheeko ( 165493 )

        Carly had the ability to at least make you believe every now and then there was progress in the right direction. My stock and compensation tells me Carly was worse, my morale tells me Hurd was far worse.

        I guess at least under Hurd the shareholder me benefited, but I could have been just as invested without having to put up with the horrid work environment in the process.

        I can't speak for the above since it sounds like he/she still works at HP, but 2 years of Hurd was enough for me, I cut my shares and ran.

    • If you're not happy with the way Hurd works, download the source code and fork it.
    • A change in CEO does not mean a change in direction. Did you notice any change in direction when Fiorina was replaced by Hurd? Guess what, there won't be any change in direction with Hurd's successor either. The policies are put in place by the Board of Directors and the President carries them out. Then the Board blames the President for the bad policies, replaces the President, and the cycle repeats. Any real change in direction would require a change in the Board. Note that any remaining Hewletts or Packa [hp.com]
  • Animated news version in ~2 mins from an Taiwanese animation studio.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC5Btn9jklI [youtube.com]
    Some care if played at work.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Rule number one of crony despotism, never appoint anyone below you that has any where near enough brains to take your job. Ellison knows this guy is too stupid for his own good, perfect number two for Ellison, no threat! Plus the guy is desperate, so he will provide grade A brown nosing.

    • Duke Nukem Forever back in development. The Hurd arrives.

      Two out of three?

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Plus the guy is desperate? How so, he left with a golden parachute. He could not work a day longer in his life and still have millions to play with.

    • I can't even imagine what would have to fall into place so there would be even the most remote possibility that Ellison's job could ever be taken from him. I'm pretty sure he can have whoever he wants as his #2 and his job will be secure until he wants to give it up and then he'll probably pick his own successor.

  • If you're a rich and powerful executive, I'd have thought you'd have inappropriate relationships with 20-something interns, not 40-something former porn stars.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Depends on the kind of networking. 40-something could have many years of contacts with people of interest and power in gov, .coms, .mil. A "Romeo Spy" of your very own.
      A 20-something bring stamina and her simple dreams of power and wealth.
      It gets boring fast. A 40-something brings perspective and insight with much experience.
    • If you're a rich and powerful executive, I'd have thought you'd have inappropriate relationships with 20-something interns, not 40-something former porn stars.

      I see you've got the makings of a proper woman-hating, eg0-inflated sociopath, I wish you well in your future business career.

    • Well, the latter have a profound and varied experience that the former lacks...
  • Gotta love it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @09:46AM (#33497922)

    He gets a cushy job in a month while good people I used to work with are still unemployed over a year later and the rest of us still stupid enough to work for HP are pulling more work load with the original (temporary - yeah right) pay cuts over us. I can barely afford to keep my children fed driving a 10+ year vehicle with over 150k miles on it so HP has enough money to buy up large companies. "Gotta tighten our belts!" - You can't afford to pay the employees what they are worth - but you can spend billions buying up companies. Remember this HP. because once the economy starts in an upswing the people you have left will leave. I would not want to own any piece of this company

  • This action raised the average executive IQ at both companies!

  • by StuartHankins ( 1020819 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:19AM (#33498216)
    you can't polish a Hurd?
  • Hurd went on to describe his affinity for Oracle's current line of hadware products. "Honestly, I had some trouble selling HP's 'Integrity' severs with a straight face," said Hurd. "But when it comes to staffing, I intend on turning 'Sun Fire' into a friggin verb."

Computer programmers do it byte by byte.

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