Penton Media, Inc., founded in 1892 by John Penton,^[1] is a diversified business-to-business media company. Penton Media is a mass media corporation that publishes and produces 113 magazines, 96 trade shows, 145 websites^[2] and has over six million subscribers across 17 different market segments.

Numerous corporate acquisitions, sales, and mergers have occurred over the years. Wasserstein & Co. purchased Prism Business Media from Primedia in August 2005 for $385 million.^[3] Prism Business Media was then merged when Wasserstein purchased Penton Media in November 2006 for $194 million.^[4] The combined entity took the Penton Media name.^[5] After the merger, Penton became one of the largest B2B media companies in the world.^[6]

Penton's global headquarters had been in the Penton Media Building in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio since 2000.^[7] However, after the Penton/Prism merger, the company is now headquartered in New York City,^[8] although it continues to maintain offices in Cleveland and numerous other cities around the U.S. with an employee base of approximately 1,350 people.^[9]

In late 2010, Penton acquired Nation's Restaurant News, adding the Restaurant Market to its list of market segments.

Penton's market segments include: Agriculture; Automotive and Trucking; Business & Commercial Aviation; Commercial Real Estate; Design Engineering; Digital Media and Communications; Electronics; Electrical Systems, Energy, and Construction; Food; Healthy Lifestyle; IT & Developer; Manufacturing & Supply Chain; Marketing & Meetings; Mechanical Systems; Public Infrastructure; Restaurant; Wealth Management.

In early 2011, Penton sold "Mix," "Electronic Musician," "Radio," and "Sound & Video Contractor" magazines to NewBay Media.^[10]

Selected publications[link]

• Air Transport World
• Broadcast Engineering
• Electronic Design
• Fire Chief
• Industryweek
• Machine Design
• Nation's Restaurant News
• SQL Server
• Trusts & Estates
• Ward's
• Windows IT Pro

References[link]

External links[link]

• Penton corporate website
• Penton office locations and publications by office

Mark Vincent Hurd
Mark Hurd at Oracle in 2010.
Born	(1957-01-01) January 1, 1957 (age 55) Flushing, New York, U.S.
Residence	Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Education	Baylor University
Spouse	Paula Kalupa

Mark Vincent Hurd (born January 1, 1957) is co-president, director, and board member of Oracle Corporation, and the past chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Hewlett-Packard. At Hewlett-Packard, Hurd succeeded CFO Robert Wayman, who served as interim CEO from February 10, 2005 to March 28, 2005, after former CEO Carly Fiorina was forced by the board to resign.^[1] On September 22, 2006, Hurd succeeded Pat Dunn as chairman after she resigned after the pretexting controversy.^[2] Hurd resigned his positions at HP on August 6, 2010, after an internal investigation uncovered expense-account irregularities.^[3]

Education[link]

Hurd graduated in 1979 with a BBA (Bachelor's degree in Business Administration) from Baylor University, which he attended on a tennis scholarship.^[4]

Early career[link]

Hurd spent 25 years at NCR Corporation, culminating in a two-year tenure as chief executive officer and president. His leadership was marked by successful efforts to improve operating efficiency, bolster the product line and build strong leadership. In the fiscal year of 2004, NCR generated revenue of $6.0 billion, up 7 percent from a year earlier, and net income rose nearly fivefold to $290 million. He was named president of NCR in 2001 and was given additional responsibilities as chief operating officer in 2002. He began working for NCR as a junior salesman in San Antonio in 1980, and subsequently held a variety of positions in general management, operations, and sales and marketing. He also served as head of the company's Teradata data-warehousing division for three years.^[5]

Hurd is a member of the Technology CEO Council, a coalition of chairmen and chief executive officers of IT companies, which develops and advocates public policy positions on technology and trade. Hurd has since been removed from mention on the official website of the Council and no longer included in the Council's list of members. He served on the board of directors of News Corporation until 2010.^[6][7]

Hewlett-Packard (2005–2010)[link]

Management style[link]

After the board forced Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina to resign in January 2005, CFO Robert P. Wayman became interim CEO for several months. Hurd was appointed permanent CEO and also held the title of President, a post which was not used by several of his predecessors (Michael Capellas was President of HP briefly in 2002 after its merger with Compaq). Hurd was also elected to the board of directors but unlike previous CEOs, he was initially not designated to be chairman of the board. On September 22, 2006, Hurd succeeded Pat Dunn as chairman after she resigned after the pretexting controversy.^[2]

The New York Times said Hurd had "pulled off one of the great rescue missions in American corporate history, refocusing the strife-ridden company and leading it to five years of revenue gains and a stock that soared 130 percent".^[8]

Under his leadership, the company has been the first in the sale of desktop computers since 2007, and laptop computers since 2006. In 2008, it also increased its market share in inkjet and laser printers to 46% and 50.5%, respectively.^[5]

Hurd has a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting. He laid off 15,200 workers  — 10% of the workforce — shortly after becoming CEO. Other cost-cutting includes reducing the IT department from 19,000 to 8,000, reducing the number of software applications that HP uses from 6,000 to 1,500, and consolidating HP's 85 data centers to 6. Hurd imposed a 5% pay cut on all employees and removed many benefits. He himself took a base salary pay cut of 20%, although the compensation committee increased his bonus by the same amount. Following the acquisition of EDS, Hurd instructed that all EDS employees should have their salaries adjusted to match the salaries of their HP counterparts, with pay cuts of as much as 20%. He promised that those employees below scale would see their pay scales adjusted through an internal process that never materialized. He forecast that in 2009, HP's sales could drop as much as 5% in the midst of the recession, but its profit increased by nearly 6%.^[5]

In 2009, Hurd was considered one of the "TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.^[9][10]

Resignation[link]

On August 6, 2010, he resigned from all of his positions at HP, following discovery of inappropriate conduct in an investigation into a claim of sexual harassment made by former reality TV actress Jodie Fisher.^[11][12][13] The probe concluded that the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards of business conduct were.^[3]

After the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that it may be made public,^[14] a letter^[15] containing details of the sexual harassment claim was published by the New York Times on December 29, 2011.^[16]

Hurd said he "realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP", and added that he believed it would be "difficult to continue as an effective leader at HP."^[3] In exchange for releasing HP from future litigation, Hurd received $12.2 million in severance, plus vested options and restricted stock for an estimated total of $34.6 million.^[17][18]

Oracle Corporation's CEO, Larry Ellison, a close friend of Hurd^[19][20], sent an e-mail to the New York Times saying "the HP Board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple Board fired Steve Jobs many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn't come back and saved them. HP had a long list of failed CEOs until they hired Mark who has spent the last five years doing a brilliant job reviving HP to its former greatness".^[21]

Compensation[link]

In 2008, Hurd's total compensation was $33,952,237, including a base salary of $1,450,000, stock award of $7,907,660, cash bonus of $23,931,882, and $662,695 in perquisites and other compensation.^[22] It was the largest bonus of any CEO in 2008, although Hurd would implement a wage freeze on his employees.^[23]

In 2009, Hurd made a total of $24,201,448, including a base salary of $1,268,750, stock award of $6,648,092, cash bonus of $15,809,414 and $475,192 in benefits and other compensation.^[24] Hurd said he believes in what he calls "pay for performance", such that employees have a substantial part of their salaries "at-risk", which gets paid only when the company's performance measures up.

Lawsuit[link]

A shareholder derivative lawsuit has been filed^[when?] following the imbroglio over Hurd's departure. The suit seeks unspecified damages and changes to HP's corporate governance. It claims that HP lost "significant credibility" due to the controversy and a loss of $9 billion in market capitalization when shares began trading the Monday after Hurd's resignation, and that his severance package could have been significantly smaller if HP's board fired him for cause. The suit was filed on behalf of shareholders by Brockton Contributory Retirement System against Hurd, and HP's board members.^[25]

Oracle Corporation (2010–present)[link]

On September 6, 2010, Hurd was named co-president and member of the board of Oracle Corporation by CEO Larry Ellison. Hurd succeeded Charles Phillips and is currently working to streamline the signup and upgrade process for clients.^[26] Safra A. Catz remains the other Oracle co-president.

Bibliography[link]

• The Value Factor: How Global Leaders Use Information for Growth and Competitive Advantage by Mark Hurd and Lars Nyberg, Bloomberg Press, 2004, ISBN 1-57660-157-9
• Fall 2003 Baylor Business Review "Enterprise Decision-Making" by Mark Hurd, ISSN 0739-1072

References[link]

External links[link]

• Oracle Executive Biography of Mark Hurd
• An HP Executive Team Biography of Mark Hurd
• Fall 2006 Baylor Business Review Q&A with Mark Hurd
• Fall 2006 Baylor Business Review "Five Leadership Tips from Mark Hurd"
• Fall 2003 Baylor Business Review "Enterprise Decision-Making"
• BBC article on appointment to Hewlett-Packard
• H-P CEO "Mark Hurd speaks", March 30 2005
• Kellogg School of Management's Digital Frontier Conference - Mark Hurd is keynote speaker, January 17 and 18, 2003
• Meet H-P’s New Boss - ZDNet - CNET Networks
• Mark Hurd: Technology Transformation Takes Commitment, Investment, Government Technology Magazine, May 2009

v t e Oracle Corp. Corporate directors Jeffrey Berg H. Raymond Bingham Michael Boskin Safra A. Catz Larry Ellison Héctor García-Molina Joseph Grundfest Jeffrey O. Henley Mark Hurd Jack F. Kemp Donald L. Lucas Naomi O. Seligman Acquisitions Sun PeopleSoft Hyperion Siebel BEA JD Edwards RightNow Virtual Iron Timesten Retek Sunopsis DBMS Oracle Database MySQL InnoDB Berkeley DB Timesten Rdb Essbase Programming languages Java PL/SQL IDE JDeveloper Forms NetBeans Apex SQL Developer Solaris Studio Middleware WebLogic Coherence Tuxedo GlassFish Operating systems Oracle Linux Oracle Solaris Computer hardware Sun Fire SPARC StorageTek Computer appliances Oracle Exadata Oracle Exalogic Oracle Exalytics Big Data Appliance Annual revenue $35.6 billion USD (2011) Employees 108,429 Website www.oracle.com Category Commons

A programmer, computer programmer, or coder is a person who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst. A programmer's primary computer language (C, C++, Java, Lisp, Python etc.) is often prefixed to the above titles, and those who work in a web environment often prefix their titles with web. The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer, software engineer, computer scientist, or software analyst. However, members of these professions typically^{[citation needed]} possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming; for this reason, the term programmer is sometimes considered an insulting or derogatory oversimplification of these other professions^{[citation needed]}. This has sparked much debate amongst developers, analysts, computer scientists, programmers, and outsiders who continue to be puzzled at the subtle differences in the definitions of these occupations.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

British countess and mathematician Ada Lovelace is popularly credited as history's first programmer, as she was the first to express an algorithm intended for implementation on a computer, Charles Babbage's analytical engine, in October 1842, intended for the calculation of Bernoulli numbers.^[6] Her work never ran because Babbage's machine was never completed to a functioning standard in her time; the first programmer to successfully run a program on a functioning modern electronically based computer was pioneer computer scientist Konrad Zuse, who achieved this feat in 1941. The ENIAC programming team, consisting of Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman were the first regularly working programmers.^[7][8]

International Programmers' Day is celebrated annually on January 7.^[9] In 2009, the government of Russia decreed a professional annual holiday known as Programmers' Day to be celebrated on September 13 (September 12 in leap years). It had also been an unofficial international holiday before that.

Nature of the work[link]

Some of this section is from the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006–07 Edition, which is in the public domain as a work of the United States Government.

Computer programmers write, test, debug, and maintain the detailed instructions, called computer programs, that computers must follow to perform their functions. Programmers also conceive, design, and test logical structures for solving problems by computer. Many technical innovations in programming — advanced computing technologies and sophisticated new languages and programming tools — have redefined the role of a programmer and elevated much of the programming work done today. Job titles and descriptions may vary, depending on the organization.

Programmers work in many settings, including corporate information technology departments, big software companies, and small service firms. Many professional programmers also work for consulting companies at client' sites as contractors. Licensing is not typically required to work as a programmer, although professional certifications are commonly held by programmers. Programming is widely considered a profession (although some^[who?] authorities disagree on the grounds that only careers with legal licensing requirements count as a profession).

Programmers' work varies widely depending on the type of business they are writing programs for. For example, the instructions involved in updating financial records are very different from those required to duplicate conditions on an aircraft for pilots training in a flight simulator. Although simple programs can be written in a few hours, programs that use complex mathematical formulas whose solutions can only be approximated or that draw data from many existing systems may require more than a year of work. In most cases, several programmers work together as a team under a senior programmer’s supervision.

Programmers write programs according to the specifications determined primarily by more senior programmers and by systems analysts. After the design process is complete, it is the job of the programmer to convert that design into a logical series of instructions that the computer can follow. The programmer codes these instructions in one of many programming languages. Different programming languages are used depending on the purpose of the program. COBOL, for example, is commonly used for business applications which are run on mainframe and midrange computers, whereas Fortran is used in science and engineering. C++ is widely used for both scientific and business applications. Java, C# and PHP are popular programming languages for Web and business applications. Programmers generally know more than one programming language and, because many languages are similar, they often can learn new languages relatively easily. In practice, programmers often are referred to by the language they know, e.g. as Java programmers, or by the type of function they perform or environment in which they work: for example, database programmers, mainframe programmers, or Web developers.

When making changes to the source code that programs are made up of, programmers need to make other programmers aware of the task that the routine is to perform. They do this by inserting comments in the source code so that others can understand the program more easily. To save work, programmers often use libraries of basic code that can be modified or customized for a specific application. This approach yields more reliable and consistent programs and increases programmers' productivity by eliminating some routine steps.

Testing and debugging[link]

Programmers test a program by running it and looking for bugs. As they are identified, the programmer usually makes the appropriate corrections, then rechecks the program until an acceptably low level and severity of bugs remain. This process is called testing and debugging. These are important parts of every programmer's job. Programmers may continue to fix these problems throughout the life of a program. Updating, repairing, modifying, and expanding existing programs is sometimes called maintenance programming. Programmers may contribute to user guides and online help, or they may work with technical writers to do such work.

Certain scenarios or execution paths may be difficult to test, in which case the programmer may elect to test by inspection which involves a human inspecting the code on the relevant execution path, perhaps hand executing the code. Test by inspection is also sometimes used as a euphemism for inadequate testing. It may be difficult to properly assess whether the term is being used euphemistically.

Application versus system programming[link]

Computer programmers often are grouped into two broad types: application programmers and systems programmers. Application programmers write programs to handle a specific job, such as a program to track inventory within an organization. They also may revise existing packaged software or customize generic applications which are frequently purchased from independent software vendors. Systems programmers, in contrast, write programs to maintain and control computer systems software, such as operating systems and database management systems. These workers make changes in the instructions that determine how the network, workstations, and CPU of the system handle the various jobs they have been given and how they communicate with peripheral equipment such as printers and disk drives.

Types of software[link]

Programmers in software development companies may work directly with experts from various fields to create software — either programs designed for specific clients or packaged software for general use — ranging from computer and video games to educational software to programs for desktop publishing and financial planning. Programming of packaged software constitutes one of the most rapidly growing segments of the computer services industry.

In some organizations, particularly small ones, workers commonly known as programmer analysts are responsible for both the systems analysis and the actual programming work. The transition from a mainframe environment to one that is based primarily on personal computers (PCs) has blurred the once rigid distinction between the programmer and the user. Increasingly, adept end users are taking over many of the tasks previously performed by programmers. For example, the growing use of packaged software, such as spreadsheet and database management software packages, allows users to write simple programs to access data and perform calculations.

In addition, the rise of the Internet has made Web development a huge part of the programming field. More and more software applications nowadays are Web applications that can be used by anyone with a Web browser. Examples of such applications include the Google search service, the Hotmail e-mail service, and the Flickr photo-sharing service.

Globalization[link]

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

Market changes in the UK[link]

According to BBC, 17% of computer science students could not find work in their field 6 months after graduation in 2009 which was the highest rate of the university majors surveyed while 0% of medical students were unemployed in the same survey.^[10] The UK category system does, however, class such degrees as Information technology and Game design as 'computer science', somewhat inflating the actual figure.^[11]

Market changes in the USA[link]

Computer programming, offshore outsourcing, and Foreign Worker Visas became a controversial topic after the crash of the dot com bubble left many programmers without work or with lower wages. Programming was even mentioned in the 2004 U.S. Presidential debate on the topic of offshore outsourcing.^{[citation needed]}

Large companies claim there is a skills shortage with regard to programming talent. However, U.S. programmers and unions counter that large companies are exaggerating their case in order to obtain cheaper programmers from developing countries and to avoid paying for training in very specific technologies.^{[citation needed]}

Enrollment in computer-related degrees in U.S. has dropped recently due to lack of general interests in science and mathematics and also out of an apparent fear that programming will be subject to the same pressures as manufacturing and agriculture careers.^{[citation needed]} This situation has resulted in confusion about whether the U.S. economy is entering a "post-information age" and the nature of U.S. comparative advantages. Technology and software jobs were supposed to be the replacement for factory and agriculture jobs lost to cheaper foreign labor, but if those are subject to free trade losses, then the nature of the next generation of replacement careers is not clear at this point.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

Computer programming portal

• Ada Lovelace - Ada Lovelace Byron's notes on the analytical engine, containing the first algorithm developed by a human being, often cause her to be called "the first computer programmer", even though modern computers would not be developed until roughly a hundred years later, after the invention of first vacuum tubes, then transistors.
• Code monkey
• Development speed
• Game programmer
• Labor shortage
• List of programmers
• List of Russian programmers
• Real Programmer
• Script kiddie
• Software development process
• Software engineering
• Video game developer
• Women in computing
• ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Weinberg, Gerald M., The Psychology of Computer Programming, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971
• An experiential study of the nature of programming work: Lucas, Rob. "Dreaming in Code" New Left Review 62, March-April 2010, pp. 125-132.

External links[link]

Look up programmer or coder in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "The Future of IT Jobs in America" article
• How to be a programmer - An overview of the challenges of being a programmer
• The US Department of Labor's description of "Computer Programmer" and "Computer Software Engineer" and statistics for employed "Computer Programmers"