"There is an opportunity here to bring in new leadership here who can build on Mark Hurd's foundation," said Reynolds.

"It's an awful thing when this happens to anybody," said Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT, of the circumstances behind Hurd's exit.

"He was also seen as being a very strong operations guy - he had a reputation of being the guy who would come into companies that were operationally inefficient and take names ... and bring those companies back into fiscal balance," said King.

"He was very bold in the way he cut and restructured companies, but he was also extremely aggressive that way," said King.

"The thing that was so amazing about Mark Hurd in his role at Hewlett-Packard was his ability execute on multiple fronts, "said Crawford Del Prete, an analyst at IDC. HP's acquisitions under Hurd's tenure, such as EDS, were "transformative," bringing in skills that HP didn't have, and allowing the company to be far more competitive than it was before he got there.