"He's got the right resume (for HP) and he's been working for a solid company," said IDC's Roger Kay. "The story on NCR is more or less it's been (pulled) back from the brink."
The 48-year-old Hurd is probably best known for his work in helping NCR, a maker of automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals and other technologies, recover from financial ills of years past.
In 2001, NCR dropped its earnings estimates by 40 percent during one fiscal quarter alone, as slowed spending on data warehousing technology caught up with the company. But during 2003, the year he was chosen to helm the company, Hurd helped NCR's net income nearly quintuple, from US$58 million, or 61 cents a share, to US$285 million, or US$2.97 a share.
As part of the turnaround effort, Hurd was credited with slashing NCR's spending, and in assuming the CEO post, he pledged to cut US$250 million in operating expenses from the company's budget in less than two years.
Within NCR, Hurd is also credited with building the company's Teradata data warehousing business, which generated US$1.2 billion of the company's US$5.9 billion in sales in 2004. Overall, NCR's revenue grew by almost 7 percent last year.
Kay said NCR's decline under the oversight of AT&T, which spun off the company in 1997, was unnecessary, and he credits Hurd with helping drive its resurgence.
"I thought (NCR) was very innovatively positioned in about 1980 or 1981, and AT&T kind of mismanaged it," Kay said. "What's likely is that Mark Hurd and his colleagues have spent the past decade or so trying to nurse the company back to health in its other businesses."
Though CEO and a board member since only 2003, Hurd has been at NCR for 23 years, serving as president and chief operating officer, and fulfilling various roles with the company's marketing, professional services and sales management operations.In 2004, Hurd teamed with former NCR CEO Lars Nyberg to author a book titled "The Value Factor: How Global Leaders Use Information for Growth and Competitive Advantage."
Hurd's appointment comes less than two months after HP ousted former Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.
CNET News.com's John Spooner contributed to this story
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