Image via WikipediaNew York Times: Former H.P. Chief May Move To Oracle: In an e-mail to The New York Times, Mr. Ellison called the H.P. board’s action “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” .... Oracle, which Mr. Ellison founded 30 years ago, is the world’s largest database software maker; Mr. Ellison has been its only chief executive. For years, the company has been a close partner with H.P., which sells computing systems and services to corporations. But since Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, in a deal that closed early this year, Oracle and H.P. have become competitors in the market for computer hardware..... Ellison remains heavily involved in Oracle, but the day-to-day operations are largely overseen by two presidents .... During his tenure, H.P. surpassed I.B.M. as the No. 1 technology company, as revenue increased to $115 billion a year, from $80 billion.
I have not read up much on this Hurd story, and I am reading now only because Larry Ellison seems to have become personally involved.
What happened?
Mark Hurd was the top guy at HP. He was never accused of having sexual relations with a marketing consultant to the company. Looks like the two had dinner together.
It is like finally the FBI said, Martha Stewart has not been proven guilty of what she was originally accused of, but since we went after her, we have decided she lied to us on one small detail of when were investigating, so Martha went to jail for a few months because she was not found guilty of what they thought she was guilty of. That was mediocre, sexist men going after a rare woman entrepreneur, a billionaire.
Mark Hurd did not have a relationship with this woman. He had dinner. Originally the HP Board thought maybe some form of impropriety took place. But by the time they found out that was not the case they realized they had already been going after him. So they had to get him for something.
And so they found some small detail.
I have not read much up on Hurd. Actually for the longest time I was angry they kicked Carly Fiorina out and got someone else.
Larry's language is pretty strong. I agree with the Apple idiots part. Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are best friends. This perhaps gives Larry an opportunity to express again his anger at Steve Jobs' ouster from Apple back in the 1980s. That might be motivation enough. Otherwise Hurd is no Steve Jobs. Even Larry would agree. But the point is taken. They should never have fired Steve Jobs.
At the end of the day what has happened is Oracle has made a smart human resource move.
