One of the biggest news stories of the year was the ongoing drama surrounding Mark Hurd’s decision to step down from HP’s CEO position back in August. As soon as the news broke, SiliconANGLE’s founder John Furrier and frequent contributor Tom Foremski immediately wrote their takes.

[box type=”info”]Happy Holidays! The SiliconANGLE news and editorial team came to a group decision: we wanted a few days off for the holidays. Since very little in the way of tech news is going to be happening over the next few days (and you’ll still be looking for content to voraciously consume), we’d round out the biggest stories of the year in an ongoing series called “What You Missed Living Under Your Rock During 2010.” For the rest of the series, go here. Want more detail about the stories discussed here?  Don’t forget click through on all the links.

Happy Holidays from SiliconANGLE!

Editor-in-Chief Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins[/box]

From John:

HP is saying that Mark Hurd decided to leave after the investigation into a sexual-harassment claim made against him by a former HP contractor. The probe concludes that the company’s sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards of business conduct were. Overall, I think that Mark Hurd was good to get HP back on the right track at the expense of some of the old “boy scout” culture, but I never saw him as a great product guy. I have been covering HP on the product side and HP Labs for over a year and HP has some great technology and products. Hopefully, the Hurd scandal won’t slow down the innovation for HP.

… And Tom speculated who would replace Mark, suggesting Intel’s Sean Maloney, Oracle’s Scott McNealy or IBM’s Steve Mills would be likely candidates (as it turned out, it was SAP’s Leo Apotheker). The obligatory guessing game about who would take the helm soon took a backseat to dissection of the gory details of Hurd’s departure (and they were indeed quite salacious).

The blogosphere cooperated and collaborated in a way that hasn’t been seen since the early days when it came to breaking the news. John Furrier plumbed his sources, as did the Wall Street Journal, Boing-Boing and the San Jose Mercury News. John penned a series of posts here at SiliconANGLE putting the pieces together that Hurd’s indiscretion in question involved a soft-pornography star named Jodie Fisher.

John’s series on the initial Jodie Fisher news:

• Mark Hurd’s $14,000 Woman is Jodie Fisher – John Furrier
• Hurd Camp Claims Jodie Fisher was a Fame-Seeker – John Furrier
• Confirmed: Hurd Paid Off Fisher to Avoid Sexual Harrassment – John Furrier
• More Hurd Women May Come Forward – John Furrier

While John continued to report on the details of Hurd’s ouster he was fed by his sources, Kristen picked up on a detail of the transition that later turned out to be fairly prescient: Larry Ellison’s support for Mark Hurd (and how bad it looked).

The tech industry is starting to weigh in on Mark Hurd’s resignation from Hewlett-Packard, with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison taking up Hurd’s cause. The company’s support of Hurd could cause backlash from moral camps, with its legal foundation for squeezing out Hurd begins to crumble. Instead of curbing disaster from this case, HP has forced the issue.

A few weeks later it emerged that Mark Hurd might “land on his feet” at Oracle. The day after Kristen reported the rumor, the news broke that Oracle would be hiring Hurd for the position of “Co-President.” Again, a scant 24 hours after Kit Dotson’s report on the new hire did HP notify us of their intent to sue Oracle in response to the new hire.

What HP is looking to do here is protect its company trade secrets. The New York Times reports, “The lawsuit said that Mr. Hurd could use his intimate knowledge of H.P. and its trade secrets to aid Oracle and harm H.P. The two companies compete in the market for computer servers, storage systems and business software.”

Although Oracle and HP would ultimately settle their differences, that (by no means) meant that Mark Hurd and Jodie Fisher would leave the news cycle quietly. Echoes of the scandal made themselves heard again in November, when Fortune Magazine and the Wall Street Journal broke down the sequence of events resulting from their investigations.

Never one to miss an opportunity to say “I told you so,” John profiled the Wall Street Journal investigation that validated our own.

As I had reported in August the real reason that Mark Hurd was ousted was because of his sexual relationship with Jodie Fisher and his mistrust by the board.

According to the Wall Street Journal story directors where done with Hurd.  One director Lucille Salhany of HP was quoted as  “He lied to my face and he’s lying to you,” Ms. Salhany told the other directors, according to people familiar with the meeting. “There’s no grounds for trusting him.”

In other words the board had the goods on Hurd.  According to my (many) sources close to HP it is well known about what Hurd was doing and with the report from the investigation it was now crystal clear- as I reported in August.

Fortune followed up with a story which goes in depth with more of an angle on Fisher.

Aside from nosey journalists like us, Mark Hurd also had to contend with US Federal investigators like the SEC, as SiliconANGLE’s news writers Maria Deutcher and Sarwat Jabeen pointed out in late December.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has started an investigation into his resignation and probing the validity of the accusation against Hurd of leaking information about a potential acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp. to [Jodie Fisher]. Mark Hurd continues to fight against the public release of an 8-page letter, which allegedly accuses him of sexual harassment concerning his relationship with former actress and HP contractor Jodie Fisher.

The saga is far from over, and in many spots crossed over into a parallel feud between Oracle and SAP. Tune back in on Monday for the thrilling conclusion!