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

HP screwed up and jumped the gun by getting rid of Hurd.

Anyone that could get HP moving again is worth their weight in gold. Fiorina SCREWED up HP so bad that it took a near miracle to get things right (again). She is all smoke and mirrors, marketing & sales person (and not a very good one at that) that was promoted WAY beyond here level of incompetence.

Now she is running for the Senate here in CA vs. Barbara Boxer. In fact, Carly was already posturing herself for the Senate seat way back when she was at HP. Here she was, CEO of an incredibly well-respected company, and she was always making moves to set herself up for a bid at the Senate.

As much as I despise Boxer, it will hurt almost as much to vote for "Carly". I may just abstain on this one.

HP jumped the gun on Hurd. He really didn't do anything all that wrong, and they panicked and sacked him. All you need is one woman yelling "harassment" or "affair" and people panic. Frankly, unless he was found guilty of harassment, nothing should have happened. As for an "affair", who cares? That's between him and his wife.

HP's board panicked and showed themselves to have little of the nerve needed to steer a ship like HP. Hopefully they will now be crushed in any markets with which they compete with Oracle.

The saddest part of the entire saga is what happened to HP's well revered and respected engineering talent. They used to be THE place for good EE's to work. Fiorina ruined that, because HP's test equipment business just wasn't "hip" enough for her.

True to life Mad Men. Eccentric, powerful, creative, not afraid of a three martini lunch, womanizing, executives. Oracle is old school. Hurd replaces Philips whose wife or spurned lover bought ad space in Times square blasting his unfaithfulness!

Why do executives make the big money? They are the decision makers. The buck stops with them. They answer to the board of directors and the share holders. They also NEVER STOP WORKING. They sacrifice their personal lives. Sure they take vacations but even then they are always working. I've watched them start meetings at 7:30am after a continental breakfast and continue till 8pm and dinner. Then catch an 18 hour flight out of the country and continue working. No one does this for a straight salary. There is luxury, but they deserve it for the work they put in. Sure they fly first class but only because of frequent flier miles. All the executives I know love their jobs. Their jobs are their lives.

Hurd slash and burned HP but only after Compaq bought DEC and HP bought Compaq. So there you have three totally different work cultures crammed together. So he saved HP from self-destruction. DEC's culture was really screwed up internally. Compaq wasn't much better. Oracle has the same problem with Sun. Engineering at Sun was awesome but the sales and marketing was awful. Sun spent more time blogging then they did selling.

Imagine Steve joining a rival company after he left Apple. That would have been very very different.