Sep 21, 2010 09:38 GMT  ·  By
Oracle's new co-president gets to keep his generous severance package from HP
   Oracle's new co-president gets to keep his generous severance package from HP

Mark Hurd is now free to work for Oracle as a senior exec after HP has agreed to drop the lawsuit it filed against its former CEO. The issue at heart was Hurd's detailed knowledge of HP which, the company said, would be used against it at Oracle.

Oracle and HP haven't had the best of relationships lately and it's easy to see why. After a public and messy breakup, former HP CEO Mark Hurd wasted no time in joining Oracle.

The same Oracle which bought Sun earlier last year and has been increasingly interested in the hardware space, where HP dominates.

On the other hand, HP has been one of Oracle's biggest allies for two decades, bundling Oracle's database software with its servers.

Hurd was touted as a CEO earlier this year in a rather unceremonious way by the board. The official reason involves some expense reports shenanigans, but analysts have said that the real motivation may have been Hurd's dismal internal approval ratings.

While Hurd was able to grow HP into one of the biggest companies on the planet in a short amount of time, he did it at the expense of R&D budgets and job cuts.

The fact is, Oracle was in the better position. While neither company would do very well without each other, HP would probably have more to lose if Oracle started offering its software only thought other hardware makers, or, even worse, on its own servers.

Hurd had to give up rights on about 346,000 shares, but it looks like he got to keep all of the very generous severance packages. At today's stock price, which is well below the price Hurd left it at, the former CEO lost about $13.6 million. The $40 million compensation from HP, though, will most likely make up for it.