Oracle yesterday announced that Mark V. Hurd has joined Oracle as president and has been named to Oracle's board of directors. Hurd will report to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

"Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, in a statement commenting on Hurd's hire. "There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark. Oracle's future is engineering complete and integrated hardware and software systems for the enterprise. Mark pioneered the integration of hardware with software when Teradata was a part of NCR."

"Mark is an outstanding executive and a proven winner," added Oracle president Safra Catz. "I look forward to working with him for years to come. As Oracle continues to grow we need people experienced in operating a $100 billion business."

"I believe Oracle's strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage," said Hurd. "Exadata is just the beginning. We have some exciting new systems we are going to announce later this month at Oracle OpenWorld. I'm excited to be a part of the most innovative technology team in the IT industry."

Separately, Oracle also announced yesterday that Charles Phillips has resigned his position as president and as a member of the board of directors.