The drama was kept to a minimum tonight at the opening event of Oracle OpenWorld, which featured the two players starring in a still-developing Silicon Valley soap opera: Oracle and Hewlett-Packard.
HP typically sends its top executives to keynote the annual Oracle conference here, but there was potential for awkwardness after HP forced former CEO Mark Hurd to resign last month amid scandal and he fled into the arms of his good friend Larry Ellison's company, which happens to be a partner and competitor of HP. Before hiring him, Ellison publicly lashed out against HP's board of directors, calling the decision to get rid of Hurd "the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs."
HP sued Hurd immediately when he signed on to Oracle to keep him from taking the job of co-president. But Hurd appeared on Oracle's earnings call Thursday, and will be a featured presenter at the conference tomorrow.
Neither side directly addressed the tensions. HP Executive Vice President of Enterprise Business Ann Livermore was the first keynote this evening, and before launching into her sales pitch to the thousands of IT professionals gathered in Moscone Center on what kinds of services HP offers, she tackled the issue without directly mentioning Hurd. LINK
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