Former HP CEO Mark Hurd joins Oracle as co president

Former HP chief Mark Hurd, who had to quit abruptly, has joined Oracle Corporation, the world's second-biggest software maker as co-president and a director on its board just a month after resigning from HP.

On 6 August Hurd had resigned as CEO of HP, the world's largest PC maker, following a sexual harassment charge bought on by a former HP contractor. (See: Cathie Lesjak is HP's interim CEO as Hurd bows out) 
 
Hurd will be reporting to Oracle's founder and CEO Larry Ellison, who is also Hurd's tennis partner, which may have helped him in landing the top job at Oracle.

''Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle,'' said Ellison. ''There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark. Oracle's future is engineering complete and integrated hardware and software systems for the enterprise. Mark pioneered the integration of hardware with software when Teradata was a part of NCR.''

''Mark is an outstanding executive and a proven winner,'' said Oracle president Safra Catz. ''I look forward to working with him for years to come. As Oracle continues to grow we need people experienced in operating a $100 billion business.''

Hurd will take over from current co-president Charles Phillips, who is stepping down, a move that is seen in the industry as being forced out to make way for Hurd.

During his five years at the helm, Hurd was able to engineer a remarkable turnaround by aggressively cutting costs by slashing 24,600 jobs over three years as HP integrated enterprise technology firm Electronic Data Systems Corp, which it acquired for $13.9 billion in August, to emerge as IBM's strongest challenger. 

While IBM still leads the tech services industry, HP, the world's largest PC maker is in second place. Last year HP and EDS had combined revenue of $38.8 billion in services whereas IBM had $51.4 billion revenue in total technology and business-services in 2007.

Oracle had close links with HP in the past as both companies were selling business software and services, but became HP's direct competitor after it acquired Sun Microsystems, a deal that closed this year.