The HP board has faced criticism for its CEO decisions in recent years. It pushed out Mark Hurd last year following a scandal triggered by a sexual harassment claimand appointed Leo Apotheker, a former SAP executive who had a mixed record at that company.

The choice of Whitman, who had no experience running a big hardware company, also raised some eyebrows. McNealy has , however, saying she will bring "much-needed stability" to the role.

McNealy, 56, co-founded Sun in 1984 and was its top executive for 22 years, making him one of the longest-serving CEOs in Silicon Valley history. He was replaced as CEO by Jonathan Schwartz and moved into the role of Sun chairman until the company was acquired by Oracle.

"I lasted about two days" after Oracle acquired the company, he said Wednesday.

McNealy built Sun into a multibillion-dollar business, profiting handsomely from the sale of its Unix servers during the dot-com boom. Under his leadership, however, Sun reacted slowly to changes in the IT market, and Sun's fortunes declined as Intel-based servers and open-source software climbed in popularity.