Oracle hires ex-CEO of HP Hurd as President

New York, Sep 7: Oracle Corp, the world's second biggest software company hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a sex scandal, as president and member of the board of the company.

The company said that Charles Phillips resigned as president and director. Hurd, who exited HP on Aug 2010 after a probe into sexual harassment allegations will serve alongside Oracle President Safra Catz.

Larry Ellison the CEO of Oracle Corp, had slammed HP's decision who exited Hurd calling the actions of HP's board "cowardly."

"Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle," said Ellison in a statement on Monday, Sep 6.

Plucked from relative obscurity to head HP, Hurd is credited with resuscitating the technology giant by cutting costs and pursuing ambitious acquisitions.

"I believe Oracle's strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage," Hurd said on Monday, Sep 6.

In Jun, Oracle reported a quarterly profit that exceeded Street projections and a 14 percent climb in sales of new software, signaling the tech spending recovery is on track as businesses shell out on big-ticket items again.

"Oracle is clearly capitalizing on this opportunity to get someone strong from a top hardware company," said Forrester analyst James Staten. "In terms of how this helps Oracle against IBM, there is reason to be optimistic."

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