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."
I feel bad for the EX SUN employees (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Larry Ellison Doesn't BS (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
Well, yes, gotta hand it to Larry (Score:5, Interesting)
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?" ;)
Re:Larry Ellison Doesn't BS (Score:5, Interesting)
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'?
Re:Larry Ellison Doesn't BS (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Long Live Crony Capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I come from (UK) "false accounting" is a criminal offence; also any normal employee would be fired for fiddling their expenses, on principle.
Re:No Ethics - No Problem! (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:I feel bad for the EX SUN employees (Score:3, Interesting)
Who do you think was worse: Fiorina or Hurd?