Mark Hurd it heading up 101 and soon.
Just weeks after resigning in semi-disgrace from the top job at Hewlett Packard, Hurd has signed on, as President of Silicon Valley software giant Oracle. The company says he'll report directly to Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison. He also got a seat on Oracle's Board of Directors.
Historically, Oracle and HP have been business partners making sure their products work together, but the move shows a growing crack between the two Silicon Valley giants. Oracle now competes in selling the computer servers that power businesses' back offices. Oracle shares jumped in early trading Tuesday.
According to Ellison, "Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do an even better job 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," Ellison added.
Hurd stepped down as HP's CEO after an allegation of sexual harassment was brought by an actress and HP contractor named Jodie Fisher. Hurd was cleared of the harassment charge, but during the investigation, it was discovered that Hurd submitted false expense reports, and he resigned. Hurd, 53, who is married with two children, denies making any advances on Fisher. Hurd also insists he didn't prepare his own expenses and didn't try to conceal his outings with Fisher, which often included dinner after the events Fisher helped organize and that Hurd attended.
The move to Oracle has many in the Silicon Valley wondering what it means to peninsula company, its employees and its current buying streak.
Oracle has been on a $40 billion buying binge since 2004, scooping up companies in other parts of the business software market, and with the $7.4 billion deal for Sun last year, Oracle became a direct competitor to HP in computing hardware -- specifically, servers.
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Hurd presided over a similarly massive makeover at HP, where he engineered more than $20 billion in acquisitions. Those deals helped HP become less tethered to printer ink as the source of the bulk of its profits. HP is now a player in technology services -- where it's battling IBM Corp. -- and computer networking -- where it's taking on Cisco Systems Inc., which is also now making its own servers and challenging HP in that market.
Hurd is known as an extreme cost-cutter. HP announced about 50,000 job cuts during his tenure.
