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Oracle has responded to HP's lawsuit against new hire Mark Hurd. In short, Larry Ellison is ready to fight! Here's the statement: “Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees. The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace."

It took Hewlett-Packard less than a day to file a lawsuit against its former chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, over his decision to join its rival and partner Oracle as a co-president. H.P. filed its lawsuit on Tuesday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara, claiming that Mr. Hurd had breached his contract with the company. The lawsuit said that Mr. Hurd could use his intimate knowledge of H.P. and its trade secrets to aid Oracle and harm H.P. The two companies compete in the market for computer servers, storage systems and business software. Mr. Hurd resigned from...

Hewlett-Packard Co's stock looks like a bargain, analysts said, but uncertainty may limit its gains until the company finds a CEO to replace Mark Hurd, who quit over a scandal with a female contractor. HP's share price, which had doubled since Hurd took the helm five years ago, fell eight per cent to close at $42.60 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange (all figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted). The company said last Friday that an investigation found that Hurd had falsified expense reports to conceal a relationship with a female contractor, identified as 50-year-old actress Jodie...

The marketing contractor linked to former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Mark Hurd is Jodie Fisher, an actress who most recently appeared in the reality TV show "Age of Love."

Excerpt: Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Mark Hurd has resigned in the wake of a sexual-harassment investigation.

From the House Committee on Energy and Commerce website - Schedule - Hewlett-Packard’s Pretexting Scandal Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Thursday, September 28, 2006 2123 Rayburn House Office Building 10:00 AM ET Webcast available Available now in PDF format - Testimony of Patricia C. Dunn Testimony of Mark Hurd

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd announces he has accepted the resignation of former chairwoman Patricia Dunn from the board of directors as a result of the H-P leak investigation and spying scandal. MORE...

PALO ALTO, Calif. - Hewlett-Packard Co. shoved Chairwoman Patricia Dunn off its board Friday, severing its ties to a leader whose efforts to plug a media leak morphed into a spying scandal that has spawned criminal and congressional investigations. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will turn the chairmanship over to its chief executive, Mark Hurd, who was supposed to take over that job in January as part of changes announced two weeks ago. But things have changed since then amid a wave of leaked documents revealing how deeply HP's investigators intruded into the personal lives of seven directors, nine journalists,...

Excerpt - Don't blame Hewlett-Packard Chairman Patricia Dunn, her new lawyer said Wednesday, for the convulsions the company's board have suffered in the wake of its troubled investigation of boardroom leaks. "She's neither a lawyer nor is she an investigator," said James Brosnahan, the Morrison & Foerster litigator whom Dunn hired this week. "And she's not the kind of person, frankly, who would advise people to do something illegal." Dunn has come under scrutiny for her role in directing the troubled probe -- The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she closely supervised it -- and she's the latest figure...

Excerpt - Hewlett-Packard Co. may be the world's largest technology company, but the superlative that better suits it these days is Provider of the World's Strangest Corporate Drama. For two weeks, almost every day has brought revelations of questionable tactics that HP investigators used this year and last to root out who had been describing boardroom deliberations to the media. Corporate intelligence is an old and frequently practiced art, but HP's efforts feel more Watergate than Wall Street. Not only did investigators impersonate board members, employees and journalists to obtain their phone records, but according to multiple reports, they also...

Excerpt - Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Mark V. Hurd approved an elaborate "sting" operation on a reporter in February in an attempt to plug leaks to the media, according to an e-mail message sent by HP Chairman Patricia C. Dunn. The document, one of more than two dozen e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, for the first time links Hurd to an internal investigation of media leaks that has led to criminal probes and will be the subject of a congressional hearing next week. ~ snip ~

The waiting is over--Hewlett-Packard chose Mark Hurd, NCR CEO, to replace Carly Fiorina, in hopes that he can eliminate the "beleagured" label that is often stuck to HP's forehead. Mark Hurd's appointment comes less than two months after HP ousted its former chief executive Carly Fiorina. Who is Mark Hurd? He was born in New York City, attended Baylor University on a tennis scholarship, becoming the number one player on the team. He graduated with a business degree, took a shot at professional tennis before signing on with NCR in 1980, selling computers in Texas. The 25-year NCR veteran rose...