Hewlett-Packard Company, the world’s no. 2 personal-computer maker, named NCR Corporation’s Mark Hurd chief executive, ending a seven-week search to replace Carly Fiorina.

He starts April 1 and will join the board, Hewlett-Packard said yesterday in a statement. Mr. Hurd, 48, resigned yesterday after spending 25 years at Dayton, Ohio-based NCR, a maker of automated teller machines and cash registers with a market capitalization about a tenth that of Hewlett-Packard.

Mr. Hurd will be charged with stemming a slide in profit at Hewlett-Packard’s printer business, boosting margins in the PC unit, and delivering consistent earnings growth. He’ll also face calls from Hewlett-Packard analysts and investors to spin off the company’s printer unit. Ms. Fiorina was ousted after failing to meet goals set after the $18.9 billion purchase of Compaq Computer Corporation

“Unlike Carly, who was the queen, this guy is kind of a worker bee,” said an analyst at San Jose, Calif.-based Enderle Group, Rob Enderle. “He’s the antithesis of a superstar, which is what they need right now.”

Shares of Hewlett-Packard rose $1.99, or 10%, to $21.78 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading after the Wall Street Journal reported the decision. The stock had fallen 5.6% this year before yesterday. NCR fell $6.50, or 17%,to $31.40, the biggest drop since its 1996 split from AT&T Corporation.

Mr. Hurd has been chief executive officer of NCR, the world’s largest maker of ATMs, since March 2003 when he succeeded Lars Nyberg. NCR said in a statement yesterday that director James Ringler will take over. After assuming the top job at NCR, Mr. Hurd reorganized the sales force and cut costs to boost profit and revive revenue after nine straight quarterly sales declines. The stock surged 63% in 2003 and 78% last year.

“It was not an easy decision to leave NCR, but I simply could not pass up the opportunity to lead a company like HP,” Mr. Hurd said yesterday in an email to Hewlett-Packard workers.

Mr. Hurd becomes the second outsider after Ms. Fiorina to lead Hewlett-Packard in its 67-year history. The chief financial officer, Robert Wayman, 59, had served as interim CEO since Ms. Fiorina, 50, was asked to resign February 8.

The chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, and board members Jay Keyworth and Tom Perkins screened candidates and recommended the strongest as finalists who were then interviewed by the entire board.

Among candidates Mr. Hurd beat were Vyomesh Joshi, 51, who runs Hewlett-Packard’s newly combined PC and printer units; and Ann Livermore, who runs the server, storage and services group. Ms. Livermore, 47, lost out to Fiorina for the CEO job in 1999. Analysts had also suggested Michael Capellas, who as CEO of Compaq sold the company to Hewlett-Packard; Motorola’s CEO, Edward Zander, and Microsoft’s Jeff Raikes.

Mr. Hurd steps in as Hewlett-Packard is stumbling. The PC unit lost its no. 1 spot in the market to Dell and the printer business, which last year supplied 73% of earnings, reported a decline in profit in the most recent quarter. Sales of printer hardware declined 13%, Mr. Joshi said February 16.

Hewlett-Packard missed analysts’ earnings estimates three times in the past nine quarters as sales of servers and printers didn’t grow as anticipated. Margins in the PC business were less than 1% in 2004, compared with Ms. Fiorina’s 2002 prediction of at least 3%.

“HP faces major challenges in its business from a margin perspective due to increasing competition,” Banc of America analyst Keith Bachman wrote yesterday in a note. “Hurd’s operational capabilities will help HP drive consistent execution.”

Mr. Hurd’s efforts at NCR to cut costs and revive profit were noticed by shareholders, analysts, and his employees.

Merrill Lynch & Company analyst Steven Milunovich said in September 2003 he had heard “anecdotes of sales people giving high fives to Hurd for freeing up internal constraints to allow them to compete more effectively.”

Mr. Wayman told employees in an email yesterday that the board liked Mr. Hurd’s “direct, open style that has won the trust and respect of employees, customers and investors.”

Mr. Hurd, who started with NCR in 1980, helped build its Teradata data warehousing business. The business helps manage, cross-reference and interpret customer information for companies such as Wal-Mart Stores, and sales surged as the Internet provided a new way to connect with customers and propelled demand for products to analyze client trends.

The Teradata business accounted for 23% of NCR’s sales in the fourth quarter. Hurd and Nyberg published a book last year titled “The Value Factor” on “how global leaders use information for growth and competitive advantage.”

Mr. Hurd graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1979 from Baylor University, which is in Waco, Texas. He also did graduate work in marketing at the University of Texas in Austin.

NCR was formed in 1884, bought by AT&T in 1991 and spun off five years later. Clients include Bank of China and AT&T.