HP's Hurd Joins Oracle As President

Mark V. Hurd has joined Oracle as President and has been named to Oracle’s Board of Directors.  Hurd will report to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

"Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle," said Oracle CEO Larry 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."

Hurd recently resigned from the position of CEO and President of HP. HP's board made that decision following an investigation which found he had a personal relationship with a contractor. The contractor reportedly received non-business related pay from the company.
 
Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, had criticized HP board for forcing Mark Hurd to step down from his positions after the sexual harassment probe. Ellison and Hurd are close friends.

Ellison wrote an email to New York Times stating, "The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,” Mr. Ellison wrote. “That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them."

It was expected that Larry will get Hurn on-board Oracle. Hurd arrival at Oracle will give the company more teeth againts HP in the market segments both companies compete fiersly.

“I believe Oracle’s strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage,” said Mark Hurd. “Exadata is just the beginning. We have some exciting new systems we are going to announce later this month at Oracle OpenWorld. I’m excited to be a part of the most innovative technology team in the IT industry.”