HP Sues Hurd For Joining Oracle

CWmike writes "Hewlett-Packard is reported to be suing former CEO Mark Hurd, who was named co-president of rival Oracle on Monday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news, and has now posted the full text of the suit on Google Docs. Among other things, it says, 'In his new positions, Hurd will be in a situation in which he cannot perform his duties for Oracle without necessarily using and disclosing HP's trade secrets and confidential information to others.'"

Comments

You shouldn't have fired him then.

[bertoelcon]

That's all.

Re:You shouldn't have fired him then.

[zero_out]

He made lots of money for stockholders, but at the expense of the employees. Remember, CEOs work for the company, which is defined as the shareholders. They often view their employees as resources to be exploited, like untapped oil reserves, or forests full of uncut trees. To this end, they are employers, with the power to hire and fire. Good employers take care of their employees. Bad ones exploit them. According to many current and former HP employees, Mark Hurd served the shareholders well, steering the company in a direction that made them a lot of money, but did so by exploiting his employees. Ergo, good CEO, but bad employer.

Re:How is it...

[butterflysrage]

cause the guys at the top are the ones making that decision, and would never dream of putting something like that in that may one day limit their ability to make millions.

Re:Should've kept him

[JeffSpudrinski]

That's pretty much it.

Unless there's a signed "non-compete" document from Hurd, HP will just have to live with their mess up.

I'd be surprised if Mr. Hurd signed such a document.

Just my $0.02

-JJS

Re:Should've kept him

[Vancorps]

The lawsuit isn't about Oracle competing with HP, it's about disclosing HP trade secrets. At this stage I doubt HP has any real secrets left though as their development seems quite stale.

Re:Non-compete agreements

[mkawick]

Also, they are demanding immediate injunctive relief... which court is available that can read this complaint today. With courts slammed and Congress unable to approve judges (or do much of anything useful), where will anyone be able to provide "immediate" injunctive relief?

Lastly, Hurd hasn't done anything yet. They are finding him guilty without any proof, before the fact, and without due process. Boy is HP a bunch of brats... "we can't have him and you can't either".

At least they didn't try to have him killed.

Isn't that what the parachute is for?

[strangeattraction]

You are given the parachute in return for the non-compete clause. Therefore you are being compensated for not just getting fired and going to the competition and spilling your guts. The grace period lets your knowledge specific to the company go out of date.

Re:Isn't that what the parachute is for?

[Red Flayer]

You are given the parachute in return for the non-compete clause.

Maybe a little bit. But I think it's more for not airing dirty laundry that might have bad impacts on the stock price.

But mostly, you're given the golden parachute so that you will return the favor in kind at the corporations where you sit on the board. Isn't that how the game is played?

Suck it HP

[l0ungeb0y]

California is a Right to Work State, you want to sue to prevent someone from having a job? Then move to Washington or New York.
Here in California we recognize the need for a person to earn a living plying their skill is more important than your need to treat people like property.
But hey, since those lawyers are salaried, better to use them to harass Mr. Sexual Harassment to put those payroll dollars to work am I right?

Re:Should've kept him

[HermMunster]

Hurd has overall knowledge but non-specific. His job was to direct the goals of the company. It wasn't to design chips, OSes, etc. His knowledge is about the direction the company was going, how to set up their priorities, how to spend and grow. He didn't have specific knowledge about the coding of projects or the design of hardware, just the direction those would take.

Oracle and Ellison are not really competitors to HP in the vast majority of areas where Oracle generates revenue (Oracle is primarily a relational database company selling to big companies). HP's competing OS is a non-starter. Even Oracle's acquisition of products from Sun wouldn't be such a major threat in any market to HP. As far as business models go Oracle's and HP's are probably quite different as they target different markets for the most part, as Oracle doesn't make printers nor desktop PCs and what they do compete with is probably limited to server markets where HP just doesn't have that much moxy.

If they try to limit Hurd's overall knowledge exposure they'll loose, they'll have to overcome years of legal history where one CEO goes to work for another company. And, this is HP's burden. HP must prove what they claim.

Sour grapes QQ hypocrits

[redelm]

HP's Board may be pretend to be aggrieved, but there is little they can do. California basically bans non-compete clauses. Some lawyers will get rich, and it will all be settled out of sight.

It would be more convincing if HP weren't such d@mned hypocrits: they complain of corporate secret leakage, yet they hired in Carly Fiorio as CEO from Lucent to get networking going and Mark Furd himself from NCR. Both "closer" in market terms to HP than Oracle is.

I think the HP Bored is just unhappy Mark bounced back quickly and very vexed the market agrees with him (Oracle's stock when up, HP down). Arrogant SOBs. I'd be embarrassed to work for them. Or buy their products.