Tag: Mark Hurd

Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd Dies at Age 62

Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd has died from an undisclosed illness. He was only 62 years old. Hurd had stepped down from his CEO role at Oracle on September 11, just prior to Oracle’s annual Open World conference. Hurd was previously CEO of HP prior to going to Oracle.

Hurd was a key proponent and driver of Oracle’s move to the cloud. He was passionate in how this is a key transformational time for Oracle and for business:

We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move (to the cloud). In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move on their time frame. We don’t put a time frame on it, but this thing is moving at a pretty good speed. It will not move linearly, it will move geometrically. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.

The applications market is about $125 billion per year. That is spent primarily on applications and most of it today is spent on on-premise applications. That market changes pretty significantly as it moves to cloud.

”There is a couple of phenomena going on at the same time. The applications market is about $125 billion per year. That is spent primarily on applications and most of it today is spent on on-premise applications. That market changes pretty significantly as it moves to cloud. As it moves to cloud, the subscription that you pay for the cloud includes not only the application but includes all of the hardware, the servers, and storage. It becomes a bigger market just by the very nature of the migration of the application to SAAS.

When you ask who’s moving (to the cloud), it’s really everybody from the biggest guys, whether those be as big as an AT&T all the way to your smaller startup.

Our strategy is to lead the applications market as it moves to the cloud and lead the movement of database technology as it moves to the cloud. I think our strategy is irrefutable. That said, almost everything in our company is at some stage in transition, moving from the old model to the new model. The company is going to grow its revenue and applications is just one example of that.

October 18, 2019
Oracle CEO: Applications Market Changes Significantly As It Moves to Cloud

“The applications market is about $125 billion per year,” says Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “That is spent primarily on applications and most of it today is spent on on-premise applications. That market changes pretty significantly as it moves to cloud. As it moves to cloud, the subscription that you pay for the cloud includes not only the application but includes all of the hardware, the servers, and storage. It becomes a bigger market just by the very nature of the migration of the application to SAAS.”

Recently, Hurd noted that all of their current customers will eventually move to the cloud. “We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move to the cloud,” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move on their time frame. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.”

Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, discusses their NetSuite acquisition and the growing size of the applications market as it moves to the cloud in an interview on Fox Business. Hurd was in Las Vegas for the Oracle NetSuite SuiteWorld event:

NetSuite Acquisition Has Been an Amazing Success

We’ve invested a lot in the applications market. We’ve invested in big and small segments of the market. Big customers and small customers. We acquired NetSuite about two and a half years ago it’s really been an amazing success. There are roughly 10,000 customers here (in Las Vegas) for our event (Oracle NetSuite SuiteWorld). It is very exciting.

When we bought NetSuite the company was growing about 16 percent in revenue. We’ve invested a lot in R&D and in tailoring the application for more industries. We’ve added sales people as well. It has resulted in incredible growth. Starting about a year ago we began to really grow our booking and that’s now translated to revenue. Last quarter we reported revenue that was almost double the revenue growth we had coming into the acquisition.

Applications Market Changes Significantly As It Moves to Cloud

There is a couple of phenomena going on at the same time. The applications market is about $125 billion per year. That is spent primarily on applications and most of it today is spent on on-premise applications. That market changes pretty significantly as it moves to cloud. As it moves to cloud, the subscription that you pay for the cloud includes not only the application but includes all of the hardware, the servers, and storage. It becomes a bigger market just by the very nature of the migration of the application to SAAS.

Inside that $125 billion about $75 billion is back office. That would be described as things like general ledger, accounting, supply chain, procurement, and HR. The other 30 percent is front office including things like sales automation and marketing automation. NetSuite has played in the mid-market, small customer side of that back office market. It’s had explosive growth. When you ask who’s moving (to the cloud), it’s really everybody from the biggest guys, whether those be as big as an AT&T all the way to your smaller startup.

If you look today, half of the cloud application customers (and revenue) that we have came from our base and half came from outside.

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd – Application Market Changes as it Moves to Cloud

April 9, 2019
All of Our Customers Will Move to the Cloud, Says Oracle CEO

“We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move (to the cloud),” said Oracle CEO Mark Hurd. “In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move on their time frame. We don’t put a time frame on it, but this thing is moving at a pretty good speed. It will not move linearly, it will move geometrically. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.”

Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, discussed the huge growth in the cloud applications market and he expects Oracle to lead that market in an interview on Bloomberg:

Cloud Applications Will Become a $400 Billion Market

The apps market is about a $125 billion market. It has two pieces to it. First is back office, which is what we call ERP. This is basically your financial systems, procurement, manufacturing, supply chain, and HR. That is really 70 percent of the applications market or around $85 billion. Second is the front office market which includes marketing, sales automation, service, etc. add up to $40 billion. A very interesting phenomenon is that as the on-premise applications market moves into SAAS it actually grows exponentially. Now the applications market is doing all of the server work, all the operating systems, and all the database work. It’s the data center, it’s the people. So the market will actually grow from $125 billion and probably triple just as it moves to SAAS because it’s taking share from the other parts of the IT market. The applications market I predict will actually become more like $400 billion as it goes forward.

We think it is an amazing opportunity. We are growing our applications market over the last 8-12 quarters more than double-digit. The market itself is growing and we are gaining substantive share. We are the leader in ERP. If you go back to Gartner, IDC, and the analysts we are leading in HR now as well. These are very attractive and robust markets. Our customers want to modernize, want to spend less, want someone else doing the work, and they want someone else assuming the risk. We are extremely bullish about our position in the market.

All of Our Customers Will Move to the Cloud

We have rewritten our application base for the cloud, for SAAS. We have been doing this for years and we’ve invested a lot of capital. We are deploying our capabilities all across the globe. We are extremely excited and bullish about not just our current position. There is going to be a leader in this market and there is no one today with more than 50 percent market share. In fact, the highest application percentage of any company in any segment is sort of mid-20s. This generation will see a leader that is much more material than that and I volunteer us to do it. In most segments, the leader has 50 percent plus.

We have a big existing on-premise user base and I believe all of them will move to the cloud. In fact, I was with a large group of our users just last night and they’re all going to move. They are all going to move on their time frame. We don’t actually put an end of life. We have a competitor that does that, but we don’t do that. We want them to move at their pace and we want them to feel good about it. We don’t put a time frame on it, but this thing is moving at a pretty good speed. It will not move linearly, it will move geometrically. When we get to a certain point you will start to see a geometric move in the market and it will be significant.

>> Watch the full Bloomberg interview with Oracle CEO Mark Hurd.

March 31, 2019
Oracle CEO: What’s In Our DNA Deeply is to Build for the Future

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd says that because they have a founder like Larry Ellison they are focused on generational changes. “At the end of the day what’s in our DNA deeply is to build for the future,” said Hurd.

Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO, discussed Oracle’s growth strategy in an interview earlier today:

We have a technical strategy. It’s very important in a technology company that you have a technology strategy. When you listen to companies that say here’s our strategy, produce a lot of cash flow, buy back stock, increase our dividend… that not a technology strategy.

Lead in Cloud Applications and Database Technology

Our strategy is to lead the applications market as it moves to the cloud and lead the movement of database technology as it moves to the cloud. I think our strategy is irrefutable. That said, almost everything in our company is at some stage in transition, moving from the old model to the new model. The company is going to grow its revenue and applications is just one example of that.

Our DNA is to Build for the Future

When you have a founder like Larry Ellison he’s very focused on generational changes. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Quarter or care about our year, but at the end of the day what’s in our DNA deeply is to build for the future.

We have in some cases given away revenue that we could have had in the interest of moving our business to where we think the market is headed. If our sole objective was to grow our revenue on a quarterly basis we wouldn’t have deemphasized many of our businesses in order to pursue where we think the market is headed years from now.

If we Were Only Focused on the Short-Term Numbers…

We wouldn’t have made the applications transition. Our applications business is now in aggregate growing double digits. We could have stayed on the old model and probably had some short-term growth better than we had when we went through the transition. But it wouldn’t be where we want to be five years from now.

We’ve pretty much played the long game at every chance to move to where the market is headed. It will result in long-term revenue growth as our legacy businesses as a percent of our revenue goes down.

We Have No Business in Oracle Growing at the Rate of Oracle

We have no business in Oracle growing at the growth rate of Oracle. We have businesses either growing 40 percent or declining 30 percent and as you mix them up you get to the result of Oracle.

As those businesses become a smaller part of our total and the growth businesses become a bigger part of the total revenue will grow. One thing you can say when you look at the numbers is that when we hit revenue growth we know how to turn it into cash flow and earnings.

There Will Be Extreme Growth for Us

Executing the applications strategy, moving our customers, and then taking other peoples customers into the more modern world of SAT, there will be extreme growth for us. The ability to move our database to Gen 2 Oracle cloud infrastructure and Autonomous Database is actually more growth opportunity than the applications business. Just executing those two things is huge for us.

October 25, 2018
Oracle CEO: Three Big Things in the Gen 2 Cloud… Security, Security, Security

Oracle’s Larry Ellison introduced the Generation 2 Cloud at Oracle OpenWorld 2018 yesterday with a primary emphasis on security. “Other clouds have been around for a long time, and they were not designed for the enterprise,” Ellison said. “We will never put our cloud control code in the same computer that has customer code.”

Oracle’s focus on security was also the theme of statements made by Oracle CEO Mark Hurd in an interview today:

Three Big Things in the Oracle Gen 2 Cloud… Security, Security, Security

It isn’t just AWS, there’s a broad set of breaches across the industry. The level of sophistication of the attacks is ever increasing, so just as our capabilities to defend are increasing so are the ability to attack. Larry’s (Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison) message started with three big things in Gen 2, security, security, security. He really hit home on the security side.

In addition to that, we focused on the evolution of our database technology, which is just as important in the context of the entire Gen 2 approach. This is the most exciting database release we’ve had in concert with Gen 2 in the history of the company. This autonomous self-driving database.

The Autonomous Self-Driving Database

When we release a patch to the database of a vulnerability that gets patched it typically takes six to nine months for our customers to implement those through their entire ecosystem. This now gets done automatically. You automatically get the protection of the patch with the push of a button.

The ability now to do this, the ability now to auto-tune the database, these are huge improvements in the database that we’ve never seen before in concert with Gen 2.

Apps Are 25-30 Percent of the Business

Apps are about 25 to 30 percent of the business. It’s growing double digits, that’s a holistic number for the applications business across all of Oracle whether it’s our support, SAS, and SAS is, of course, driving all of that plus some. Now in TAC what we did in Q2 of last year we introduced a concept called bring your own license (BYOL). That had the effect of making a license portable, whether using in your data center or whether you’re using it in the cloud.

The impact of that was our license revenue actually went up. People decided to buy more of those licenses the traditional way if you would for a couple of reasons. One is our customers have a hard time predicting the workload that’ll be on-premise versus the cloud. Will it change four or five percent? I don’t know. Therefore, I’ll buy a traditional license which caused our licenses to go up and what you would think of as our non-SAS platform revenue to actually not grow as fast as it was previously.

Oracle Will Have Data Center Capabilities in the Middle East.

The Middle East as a region is a very strong region for Oracle and we will have a data center in the Middle East. Whether that’s in UAE, whether that’s in some other part of the Middle East, we’ll see. But we will put a data center capability in the Middle East. We always like to have all the facts (Regarding the Kashoggi allegations) before we jump to any conclusions. We have some and certainly, we’ll look to get all those facts. That said if some of these things were true obviously that would be of great concern to us.

Again, it’s an important region for us and I don’t want to take one action and paint a picture across an entire region. There’s an entire region of very good customers and we will have some data center capabilities in the Middle East.

October 23, 2018
Oracle’s Autonomous Database Cloud is a Huge Technological Advantage

The release by Oracle of its AI-powered Autonomous Database Cloud earlier this year and just adding Transactional Processing to its abilities last week is huge for Oracle and its customers who need this cutting edge technology. Oracle considers the Autonomous Cloud a generational release because it literally is the first database in the world that can build itself and update itself without human help.

Oracle CEO Mark Hurd recently spoke to CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” about it:

Oracle Autonomous Database Is a Generational Release

Probably our most important generational database release is the Autonomous Database. This is where the database is integrated with AI and machine learning that really just self-patches and self-tunes. It actually creates a position where your security issues go down, you get higher uptime, and you pay less money. We really never in our history had a database release that had as many positive business outcomes as opposed to just technology.

This is a place where you get better performance, more uptime and you will eliminate tons of labor. Most of our customers, for example, I know this has become a bigger issue with C-Suites now where the amount of time it actually takes to patch software can be months for most of our customers.

This release of the Autonomous Database literally eliminates that need to patch. This is a generational release for us as we bring it to market.

Oracle BYOL Explained

Let me explain BYOL (Bring Your Own License). That is simply where you can buy a license and you can use it on-premise or in the cloud, so it’s basically a currency that you can move across platforms. We’re one of the very few companies that allow you to do that, so we believe it’s an advantage for our customers and what they want and that’s why we utilize that strategy.

Second, I think you need to divide up what’s happening in the applications market versus what’s happening in the infrastructure and platform market. In the applications market, there’s an opportunity now for most companies to modernize all of their systems.

ERP is Moving to the Cloud

Let’s start with the back office systems, the biggest category of back-office applications is called ERP. ERP is basically companies financial supply chain manufacturing systems, etc.

All of those are really going to get replaced over the next several years as companies move to the cloud where there are much more innovation and much more work done by somebody else as opposed to by the customer. We’re in the very early innings of that market.

Oracles Technology is a Competitor Differentiator

We have a significant lead technology wise in ERP and we went through a ton of customer wins in the quarter. That market is going to over the next several years be very exciting. The technology infrastructure market, that’s as you move further up the stack, meaning from compute and storage to database to other tools and systems, Oracle gets more differentiated from competition the further you move up the stack.

Just replacing somebody’s computer with somebody’s infrastructure, while that’s interesting, the more technology you have and the more IP differentiates Oracle. Oracle has always been differentiated by doing the hardest jobs the best, by investing in R&D and investing in innovation.

Oracle Autonomous Database for Transactional Processing Announced

Larry Ellison, Oracle Co-Founder, CTO, and Executive Chairman, made the announcement:

We’re announcing the immediate availability of the Oracle Autonomous Database transactional processing. Now the machine learning based technology not only can optimize itself for queries for database warehouses and Data Marts, but it also optimizes itself for transactions.

It can run batch programs, reporting, Internet of Things, simple transactions, complex transactions, and mixed workloads. Between these two systems, the system that is optimized for data warehousing and the system that’s optimized for transaction processing, the Oracle Autonomous Database now handles all of your workloads. All of them.

Larry Ellison also recently gave his take on the Autonomous Database Cloud:

The cool thing about the Autonomous Database Cloud is because it is autonomous the database is fully automated. Human Beings don’t create the database, the database creates itself. Human Beings don’t tune the database, the database tunes itself.

September 22, 2018
Oracle Releases Earnings, Posts 2% Decline In Revenue

Oracle posted its fiscal 2013 Q1 earnings report on Thursday. While profits were up 15%, revenues were down 2% to $8.2 billion, though GAAP new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions were up 5% to $1.6 billion. Non-GAAP new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions revenues were up 6% to $1.6 billion.

“Exadata, Exalogic, Exalytics and our other engineered systems grew more than 100% in the quarter,” said Oracle President Mark Hurd. “For the full year, we expect to double engineered systems sales to well over $1 billion. Oracle’s new cloud business is also approaching a $1 billion annual run rate. These two businesses will drive Oracle’s growth for years to come.”

“A little more than a week from now we will announce lots of enhancements to the Oracle Cloud,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “There are more CRM, ERP and HCM applications as a service, and more Oracle database, Java and social network platform services. Our new infrastructure as a service is available in the Oracle Cloud and as a private cloud in our customers’ data center, with the unique ability to move applications and services back and forth between the two. Join us at Oracle OpenWorld for all the details.”

Oracle also reported:

Both GAAP and non-GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 3% to $4.1 billion. Both GAAP and non GAAP hardware systems products revenues were down 24% to $779 million. GAAP operating income was up 7% to $2.9 billion, and GAAP operating margin was 35%. Non-GAAP operating income was up 1% to $3.6 billion, and non-GAAP operating margin was 44%. GAAP net income was up 11% to $2.0 billion, while non-GAAP net income was up 6% to $2.6 billion. GAAP earnings per share were $0.41, up 15% compared to last year while non-GAAP earnings per share were up 11% to $0.53. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $14.0 billion, up 9% compared to last year.

Without the impact of the US dollar strengthening compared to foreign currencies, Oracle’s reported Q1 GAAP earnings per share would have been $0.03 higher at $0.44, up 24%, and Q1 non-GAAP earnings per share would have been $0.03 higher at $0.56, up 17%. Both GAAP and non-GAAP total revenues also would have been up 3%, GAAP new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions revenues would have been up 10%, non-GAAP new software licenses and cloud software subscriptions revenues would have been up 11% and both GAAP and non-GAAP hardware systems products revenues would have been down 21%.

You can view the report in its entirety here (pdf).

In other Oracle news, the company has joined FairSearch.

September 21, 2012
NYT: HP Staff Despised Hurd

A week ago, HP announced the departure of Chairman, CEO, and President Mark Hurd, following an investigation into sexual harassment claims that were later revealed to come from actress and former HP contractor Jodie Fisher.

Hurd allegedly fudged some expense reports connected to the relationship with Fisher. A New York Times article this weekend alleges that that it may be about more than all of that. Joe Nocera writes:

Mr. Hurd’s sudden departure from H.P. can be traced, in truth, to the last time the H.P. board did something shameful. That was the infamous “pretexting” scandal, which burst into public view about a year and a half into Mr. Hurd’s tenure. The essential allegation was that the company, led by its board chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, had gone way over the line in investigating a series of damaging leaks, including hiring investigators who used false pretenses to obtain phone records of people suspected of being the leakers.

According to “The Big Lie: Spying, Scandal and Ethical Collapse at Hewlett-Packard,” an authoritative account by the former BusinessWeek writer Anthony Bianco, Mr. Hurd was very involved in H.P.’s efforts to hunt down the leakers. After the scandal broke, he hijacked H.P.’s internal investigation, hiring an outside law firm and ordering it to report directly to him, instead of the board, which is the normal practice.

He goes on to say the company’s employees "despised" Hurd, even among top executives. Basically, Nocera’s presumption appears to be that the company was looking for a reason to get rid of him.

Either way, shareholders aren’t thrilled that they weren’t clued in. One has filed a suit against HP’s Board for failing to live up to fiduciary responsibilities.

August 15, 2010
HP Shareholder Sues Board Over Hurd Investigation

Last weekend, HP announced the "resignation" of Chairman, CEO, and President Mark Hurd, following an investigation into sexual harassment claims that were later revealed to come from actress and former HP contractor Jodie Fisher.

Well, HP’s board may have forgotten to clue in shareholders about that investigation, and now the board is being sued over it. The suit, filed by a Connecticut-based law firm, according to the Wall Street Journal, was actually filed on Tuesday on behalf of HP shareholder Brocton Contributory Retirement System.

The complaint alleges that the board failed to live it to its fiduciary duties related to the investigation. CNET’s Erica Ogg quotes the complaint, "As a result of Hurd’s, Lesjak’s, and the HP board’s shortcomings, HP lost significant credibility, and the market punished HP (and its shareholders) upon the 8/6/10 revelation of Hurd’s termination–slashing its stock rating and erasing over $9 billion in market capitalization when the company’s stock resumed trading on 8/9/10."

Lesjak would be HP’s CFO, which has assumed the CEO role on an interim basis as the board looks for Hurd’s replacement.

Hurd did indicate that the company will be fine without him, if that counts for anything. "The corporation is exceptionally well positioned strategically," he said upon resignation. "HP has an extremely talented executive team supported by a dedicated and customer focused work force. I expect that the company will continue to be successful in the future."

HP has not offered a statement on the lawsuit.

August 13, 2010
HP Sexual Harassment Claimant “Saddened” By News

Following the announcement of HP CEO Mark Hurd’s departure, the attorney of Jodie Fisher, the contractor who made the sexual harassment claim against him released a statement from her client.

Fisher had the following things to say:

"I was surprised and saddened that Mark Hurd lost his job over this. That was never my intention."

"Mark and I never had an affair or intimate sexual relationship. I first met Mark in 2007 when I interviewed for a contractor job at the company."

"At HP, I was under contract to work at high-level customer and executive summit events held around the country and abroad. I prepared for those events, worked very hard and enjoyed working for HP."

"I have resolved my claim with Mark privately, without litigation, and I do not intend to comment on it further."

"I wish Mark, his family and HP the best."

Attorney Gloria Allred added, "My client is a single mom focused on raising her young son. She has a degree in Political Science from Texas Tech and was recently the vice president of a commercial real estate company. She formerly worked on the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. She has also been a successful salesperson for a Fortune 500 company and has been in various television shows and films, some of which were R-rated when she was in her 30’s. Most recently, Jodie was one of the stars in an NBC television show called ‘Age of Love.’ Our office does not plan to have any further comment."

There you have it.

HP CFO Cathie Lesjak has stepped into the CEO role on an interim basis as the company commences with its search for a new CEO.

August 9, 2010