Top Preforming CEO fired for lying on his Expense Report

SAN FRANCISCO — In naming Mark V. Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, as Oracle’s new co-president, Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle’s chief executive and largest shareholder, has put his money where his controversial mouth is.

Late on Monday, Oracle announced that Mr. Hurd had joined the company as a president and a director. Mr. Hurd resigned from H.P. one month ago, after an investigation by the board into a personal relationship with a contractor turned up questionable expense reports.

Mr. Ellison, a personal friend of Mr. Hurd’s, criticized H.P.’s board last month in an e-mail message to The New York Times, saying it was “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.”

Now, Oracle intends to capitalize on H.P.’s mistake, Mr. Ellison said

RTTNews) - Business software maker Oracle Corp. (ORCL: News ) announced Monday that the ousted CEO of technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ: News ) Mark Hurd has joined it as president and as a director. Hurd serves as co-president alongside Safra Catz and succeeded Charles Phillips, who resigned from the positions.

In his role, Hurd will report to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who has been his long time friend and had lashed out at HP's board for forcing Hurd to resign from his positions over sexual harassment allegations.

Ellison and Hurd have been close personal friends. With both being avid tennis players, they often plays tennis at Ellison's house in Silicon Valley.

Business-wise, Redwood City, California-based Oracle has been a close partner of HP and bundles enterprise software along with the large computing systems that HP sells to corporations. However, they became rivals after Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems earlier this year.

"Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle. 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," Ellison said in a statement

It is hard to fault Oracle’s timing of its appointment of Mark Hurd to replace the outgoing Charles Phillips. A long holiday weekend that US analysts take seriously so few were paying attention other than the hard core Twitterers.

The markets will likely welcome the news as representing a strengthening of the board to deliver more profit to shareholders. Look for an up tick in the stock price. The Wall Street Journal notes early thoughts by one analyst:

“I think Hurd is a perfect fit for Oracle,” said Brent Thill, an analyst with UBS Securities. “This is a guy who can help take the company to the next level.”

Even so, many questions remain. The same Wall Street Journal article raises questions about the conditions of Hurd’s departure from H-P and the fact his $35 million payout will be impacted by confidentiality conditions. This is a tricky one. H-P could sue on the assumption that as he is now working for a competitor his ability to maintain confidentiality goes out the window. Experts believe the non-compete will be hard to make stand up but that still leaves the question - what about the money? I guess we’ll have to wait see if H-P sues. I’m betting that Larry Ellison has provided Hurd with assurance that whatever his potential loss, Oracle will cover with stock options and the promise of even greater riches at Oracle

Your imagination grows with the strength of okie's; ideas that nobody else has even contemplated

Dennis Howlett
Dennis Howlett has been providing comment and analysis on enterprise software since 1991 in a variety of European trade and professional journals including CFO Magazine, The Economist and Information Week. Today, apart from being a full time blogger on innovation for professional services organisations, he is a founding member of Enterprise Irregulars and an investor in a European start-up. Prior to, Dennis was technology and tax partner in a British firm of Chartered Accountants for 10 years. Prior to that held various senior finance roles across a broad range of industries.

HP’s nightmare gets worse — Mark Hurd joins Oracle as co-president
September 6, 2010 | Dean Takahashi

Oracle named former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd as its new co-president today. That puts Hurd in a position to do some serious damage to HP, which is now his competitor.

Dean Takahashi
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Oracle Corp. /quotes/comstock/15*!orcl/quotes/nls/orcl (ORCL 24.35, +0.09, +0.35%) Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison sharply criticized Hewlett-Packard Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!hpq/quotes/nls/hpq (HPQ 39.80, -0.12, -0.30%) for its lawsuit against former H-P chief Mark Hurd, describing the move as "vindictive" and against the interests of H-P shareholders. "Oracle has long viewed H-P as an important partner," Ellison said in a statement. "By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the H-P board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees." Hurd was forced to resign from H-P last month following a sexual-harassment accusation. Oracle named Hurd to serve as its co-president Monday, prompting a suit from H-P, which said Hurd would be violating a non-disclosure agreement by working for Oracle. Ellison said the suit would poison the waters between the two firms. "The H-P board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and H-P to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace," he said.

So, hawk, what do you think about the non-disclosure agreement? Mean anything to you?

HP sues Mark Hurd over trade secrets