Will Mark Hurd Go To Dell?

Mark Hurd’s exit from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) was based on his bad judgment, bad manners, or bad behavior. None make him any less of a highly skilled technology CEO, perhaps the best since Louis V. Gerstner Jr took over the besieged IBM (NYSE: IBM) in 1993.

Hurd has been humiliated in public which is all the more reason that he wants to be exonerated by turning around another tech behemoth. As it turns out, the CEO job may be open at Dell (NASDAQ: DELL). The world’s No.3 PC company has been on a downhill trajectory since founder Michael Dell took back the chief executive’s job in 2007. Dell has been bedeviled by accounting scandals, bribery charges, and accusations that it sold millions of flawed PCs to customers which some of its employees knew about.Michael Dell has been directly involved with many of these matters. The company reported on July 22 that “The SEC’s allegations with respect to Mr. Dell and his settlement are limited to the alleged failure to provide adequate disclosures with respect to the company’s commercial relationship with Intel prior to Fiscal 2008.” Dell was, in other words, enmeshed in the company’s troubling relationship with Intel.

Shareholders withheld 25% of their votes to keep Dell as a board member according to a government filing about the results of the company’s proxy sent to its investors. That is an extraordinary vote of “no confidence.”  It would be shocking if the Dell board of directors did not look at the numbers and say that Michael Dell is more of a liability to the company than an asset.

There are a number of places Hurd could go either in the corporate or private equity worlds. He does not leave the impression of a man who wants to run money. He does have the look of a man who would like revenge.

Hewlett-Packard, more than any other company, has taken Dell’s global PC market share. There are few signs that Dell is getting any of that business back. Hurd is apparently a vicious competitor, which make him the perfect man to run Dell. Unless, of course, he signed a non-compete with HP.

Douglas A. McIntyre