Update 2: HP taps NCR's Hurd as new CEO

After reviving NCR, Mark Hurd now has another reclamation project on his hands.

Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) board of directors has selected him as the company's new leader following the abrupt dismissal of Carly Fiorina earlier this year, HP announced in a press release Tuesday following numerous media reports about Hurd's selection. Hurd will be named president and chief executive officer, and will be formally introduced during a conference call Wednesday morning.

NCR issued a statement Tuesday confirming Hurd "has resigned, effective immediately, to accept a position with a large global technology company."

Hurd is a 25-year veteran of NCR, a supplier of retail point-of-sale hardware and software. He was named president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Dayton, Ohio, company in 2003 after serving as head of the company's Teradata division. Teradata provides data warehousing and customer-relationship management software to businesses.

His experience running a company with multiple businesses will serve him well at HP, said Sam Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis in La Jolla, Calif. Hurd is also noted for his painstaking attention to operational efficiencies, a trait that helped him boost NCR's stock (NCR) price from around $10 in 2003 to Monday's closing price of $37.90, he said.

NCR investors were certainly disappointed to lose Hurd, sending the company's stock price down $6.50, or 17.2 percent, to close at $31.40 on the news Tuesday that he had been picked for the top spot at HP. HP's stock rose $1.99, or 10 percent, to close at $21.78 Tuesday afternoon.

Hurd was on the short lists of many companies searching for new executives in recent months, said Umesh Ramakrishnan, vice chairman of New York executive search firm Christian & Timbers, the company that found Fiorina for HP in 1999. He described Hurd as a "solid citizen" who will focus on making HP run smoothly.

"If you look at the track record, he took a company that was floundering and took it around to where it's a very healthy company. HP's board is looking to him to do something similar here, because he's had success executing on strategies," Bhavnani said.

HP ousted Fiorina in February after revealing that she and the board of directors were at odds on how best to run HP. Fiorina was known as a visionary marketer who engineered the complex acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp. in 2002. The deal was supposed to transform HP from a sleepy research and development firm focused on printers to a global technology conglomerate with leading market share positions in just about every segment of computer hardware.

Fiorina did create a technology powerhouse that could compete with Dell and IBM, but she failed to deliver the promised returns to HP's investors. She was also criticized for a hands-off approach to daily management and a refusal to name a chief operating officer to help her run the company.

Fiorina's replacement will have a tough job. Aside from the company's lucrative printing business, the $60 billion company has been struggling to find ways to make its business units profitable and the controversial acquisition of Compaq is now widely regarded as a failure.