Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

In First Interview Since Joining Oracle, Hurd Talks Hardware

Europe’s economy may be melting down, but you wouldn’t know it judging from the results of software giant Oracle.

In his first on-the-record interview since joining Oracle last year, co-President Mark Hurd tells AllThingsD that Oracle is experiencing a lot of company-specific momentum in Europe, where it saw 14 percent revenue growth in quarterly results reported last week.

“When I look at each segment of our business in Europe, if I read to you the growth rates of each of our product segments, it would sound very consistent,” Hurd said. “We didn’t have any one big deal or transaction that stood out. Europe was a bright spot in the quarter for us.”

Hurd also talked about the state of Oracle’s hardware business, much of which it picked up in its acquisition of Sun Microsystems last year. Hurd reiterated previous comments that Oracle aims to focus more of its efforts on selling hardware that contains more Oracle intellectual property, and thus commands a higher price and profit margin, than on commodity hardware. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison raised eyebrows when he said that Oracle wouldn’t mind if its business selling hardware running Intel-based chips — its so-called x86 business — fell to zero.

“We’re focused on adding value to customers. If there’s no Oracle intellectual property in it then you ought to buy it from someone else,” Hurd said. “All of our products are designed to be the best-of-breed in the markets that they serve. If it’s some product that comes from a third party that comes through Oracle where we add no value, that’s the stuff we have no interest in.”

The comments came in an interview with AllThingsD today, Hurd’s first since he joined Oracle last year, which followed his resignation from HP a month before. A fuller version of the interview will be posted soon.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work