Former HP CEO Mark Hurd, who resigned August 6 ostensibly over a sexual harassment charge, won’t be on the News Corp board after October. He wasn’t nominated for re-election according to the Wall Street Journal, part of the News Corp empire, quoting an SEC filing.

It’s unclear whether it was Hurd’s idea not to stand or Rupert Murdoch’s.

Hurd won’t be replaced immediately.

It was his only other board seat besides HP, one he accepted in February 2008.

Speculation over what exactly happened in HP’s executive suite has turned recently to Hurd’s unpopularity with the HP workforce and his alleged starvation of the company’s R&D.

HP spends about $2.7 billion on inventions compared to IBM, its biggest competitor, which spends $5.8 billion, and wannabe Cisco, which spends $5 million. Apple, however, seems to get a bigger bang out of its $1.1 billion R&D budget than any of them.