back to article HP strikes back at Oracle with SAP CEO pick

Let's see, now. If I was a big Oracle partner and I really wanted Larry Ellison to go ballistic, what's the worse thing I could do? How about elect the former CEO of SAP – one of his most hated rivals – as my CEO? Well, that's what Hewlett-Packard has done in what looks an awful lot like a strike back at Ellison after he …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Unfair

    > Often, if you hear of an ERP implementation going awry, it's an SAP implementation.

    Plenty of Oracle implementations are a disaster too. It's the quality of the consultants that counts on big name ERP implementations, much as they would have you believe otherwise. If you get landed with a "bottom of the drawer" team (in doubt: you have) you're done for.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next....?

    Anyone running a book on when the next CEO rollover will occur? Somehow this one doesn't feel like it is going to last.....

  3. David Dingwall
    Megaphone

    Who cares if he's visionary?

    "A remarkable leader he's not, and he's certainly no visionary."

    probably isn't the point. Whatever you might think of Mr Hurd's tenure, (and I'd suggest his one and only vision was "biggest swinging axe in the business") the emphasis for each divisional VP was to own their own product lines numbers and promote the visions for these lines, rather than expecting the CEO to be grand-standing at each and every product launch.

    In the search for the new HP CEO, the press was bigging-up the skills and achievements of these VP's. You could argue HP only needs two or three years from Leo, then see which of the internal candidates matures enough to fill his shoes

  4. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Boffin

    Watch this space....?

    Well, Apothetic-ker wasn't on my list of potential CEOs (damn, that's another office sweepstake with no winner), but I suppose he makes sense when you consider;

    1. hp is intent on building their software bizz, as being number 7 isn't good enough when hp always wants to be number 2 or number 1 in any market, so an enterprise software geezer isn't such a bad idea;

    2. hp has always had a very close relationship with SAP and claim to be SAP's biggest partner, so this can only strengthen the SAP-hp relationship.

    The anti-Oracle spat seems to be being a bit hyped, after all the majority of SAP implementations I have heard of on hp kit seem to have gone with Oracle as the DB and I've personally never had a problem working with SAP and Oracle in the same room. So far, SAP doesn't seem to have made many inroads into the installed Oracle base with Sybase as an alternative (or if they have then I've just not heard about it - anyone know any details on conversions?), so I can't see SAP going to full-on war with Oracle just yet.

    I'm tempted to call Apothetic-ker a stand-in to keep the markets calm whilst the top-bods at hp (Livermore and Donatelli) manouvere for the next CEO fight.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Boffin

      And.....

      Interesting point missed in the discussions so far - Apothetic-ker is a German. Not sure if I'm right but I think that makes him the first non-American CEO of hp. Could it be the hp board are hoping to gain more traction in Europe with a German CEO?

    2. blondie101
      Boffin

      2. Oracle DB

      I know of large SAP implementations on... MaxDB, SAP's own built-in don't worry DB. With big I mean one of the larger implementations around here

  5. Fenton

    Sybase

    Matt,

    the Sybase purchase had nothing to do with the underlying database (SAP is currently in bed with IBM on that side), but all to do with the in memory database and more importantly mobile.

    Sybase is not a supported DB with SAP

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He's a puppet?

    So, HP appoints a CEO who's sum total of CEO experience is less than a year at the helm of a much smaller company in a different sector to that in which HP does much of it's business.

    Doesn't bode well. Unless...unless the Board decided it no longer wanted an autocratic, bullying leader and instead went for a CEO which would do its bidding.

    A company run by its board...now there's an idea...

    1. Britt Johnston
      Thumb Up

      to short to call

      Apotheker's inherited SAPs problems, and had too short a tenure to fix anything - it is moot whether he improved things or made them worse. SAP employees by and large think worse - but they still don't know whether they are on the right track. But Apotheker is consistent, and he will bring outside perspective. He is also cheap to onboard compared to an American leader.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    exit PC biz?

    A bit of a stretch, but perhaps buy SAP and sell off the PC and printer businesses?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      cart before horse, AC

      > sell off the printer businesses?

      Don't you mean

      The printer business decides to sell the rest of the HP ?

      1. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

        They can sell off the comptuer business...

        ...and call it Compaq.

  8. Wallyb132
    WTF?

    My question is...

    Who passed HP to become the number one PC company?

    "The world's second largest PC company said"

    Or was Michael Dell commenting on HP's CEO pick?

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