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More Court Trouble For Oracle: Now HP Is Suing Them
New submitter another random user writes "Oracle violated its contract with Hewlett-Packard (HP) after it decided that future versions of its database software would not support a line of HP servers, HP's lawyer has said in court."
The issue at hand: Oracle agreed to support Itanium, and has since pulled support. "... Hewlett-Packard estimates it should be awarded more than $4 billion in damages, based on an extrapolation to 2020 that accounts for projected losses, said the person, who didn’t want to be identified because the court document containing the damages request is confidential." Oracle is using the Itanic defense: "In cross-examination today, Oracle attorney Dan Wall asked Livermore [HP board member] if she had heard Itanium called 'Itanic,' a reference to the 'Titanic' oceanliner sinking. 'I've heard lots of terms,' Livermore said. 'I understand the reference they are making and I don’t like it. It is not done by anyone I like or respect.'"
HP filed this case a year ago. They made opening statements in the trial today.
No, not the open source project "Karma" but "Karma" in the cosmic hippie sense.
I hope HP takes them to the cleaners. And they aren't even being patent trolls, it genuinely sounds like Uncle Larry Douchebag screwed them over.
Go HP!
(Sorry HP, your products still suck... but your lawsuit is AWESOME!)
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
" 'I understand the reference they are making and I don’t like it. It is not done by anyone I like or respect.'"
'No true scotsman' argument
We have been calling it Itanic since day one, if people she knows or like aren't using that term, then shes in an echo chamber
Good-bye
If they really want a good defense, they need to try this:
"Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! Why would a Wookiee, an 8-foot-tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of 2-foot-tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major technology company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!"
I am officially gone from
Gracie does.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
most contracts like this will have enough stipulations to make it fairly easy to pull out if things go south. i bet oracle put in all kinds of conditions like minimum sales numbers, etc
What, so it was jiu jitsu that killed the Itanium?
Circumcision is child abuse.
It wouldn't surprise me if Mark Hurd was a little lax in the clauses of the contract(s) with Oracle because he was dealing with his buddy Larry.
Of course, once Hurd no longer ran the ship, HP found the terms of their contracts offered them little protection from an uncooperative Oracle....
That said, I'm not convinced Itanium had a future - maybe it was time to change processors. The difference probably was that HP could have done it in a more graceful fashion if they were not being kicked in the ass by Oracle.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
It sounds like Oracle probably has some contractual obligations to live up to, and if so, HP deserves for them to uphold their end of the bargain. That said, I can understand Oracle's lack of desire to throw good money after bad. Itanic might not be dead, but it's comatose in a hospice with friends and family gathered around. Who'd want to spend much time and effort on a system that almost nobody wants?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I always wished that AMD had named their Athlon chips Atinum instead.
1. They came out roughly the same time as Itanium
2. They were 64-bit (x86-64 instead of Itanium's IA64)
3. They were touted as the next generation after x86 (as was IA-64)
4. The name started with A (for AMD, where Itanium started with I for Intel)
5. The name was a metal with the first phonem(s) removed (Pl-Atinum vs. T-Itanium)
6. Platinum is more costly and precious than Titanium
For those that lack the history, x86-64 (and the Athlon) was a resounding success; so much so that Intel begrudgingly followed AMD's lead for their consumer grade 64-bit chips. Intel's attempt to push Itanium and the IA64 architecture faltered with the much simpler and sensical upgrade path that AMD's lineup offered.
I wonder if litigious HP will sue AMD too, since the success of the X86-64 architecture contributed to Itanium's failure as a platform, and thus Oracle's withdrawal of support for it.
Go for a zillion-quagillian dollars damage.
Hire the same accounts that figure up the RIAA's damage estimates. They'll make it work.
The company that killed WebOS and seriously considered selling off their whole PC business line is desperate to hang on to their Itanium business?
No, but they did get it to tap.
According the the linked articles (haven't read the actual suit/complaint), HP is claiming that Oracle committed to continued support at part of the settlement of HPs suit over Oracle hiring former HP CEO Mark Hurd who resigned in the midst of a scandal for which HP would have almost certainly fired him.
There is no suggestion that HP paid Oracle any amount to develop or continue support of their software on HP's Itanium systems. So, if you cut through all the distractions and boil it down the the basics, HP is claiming the Oracle owes $500M to $4B for hiring Mark Hurd, the very same CEO HP would probably have fired.
Livermore acknowledged under questioning that Intel demanded $488 million over five years to keep up production of Itanium in a waning market for the chip. She said that to her knowledge, Oracle was never told about the arrangement with Intel.
Which helps explain why she "doesn't like" people who refer to it as Itanic.
Wow, that's the second time this week I've backed Oracle's position in a lawsuit (the other is against Lodsys, not the Google case)
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Of course you do because it doesn't fit your conspiracy theory. When you look at the facts, non existent market-share for itanium, HP paying Intel to continue production of itanium, you understand why Oracle dropped it.
Its a question that has been kicking around in my head for some time but with x86 already pretty reliable, fast and cheap as hell, why is Itanium still around? I understand its pretty much limited to big iron systems where up time is critical for customers like banks and military but what is so special about its design?
Is there any technical advantage to the Itanium architecture that enables it to run more reliably than a Xeon or Opteron? The only feature I can recall is the ability to run two CPU's in lock-step for high reliability but I don't see why they couldn't introduce this feature in x86. Why hasn't x86 replaced it in big iron systems?
Why only sue them, if you can threaten them with lasers. On the moon!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
then they should either do what they said or else pay out whatever penalties were specified in the contract.
If there was no contract or nothing specified in it, then it goes to the courts...which is exactly what has happened.
Likely there's a bunch of Itanium code out there and people don't want to spend the money rebuilding it for x86.
No, look, if Oracle wanted to deal with whatever they would have had to pay for hiring Hurd, they shouldn't have made a deal with HP to give something up to drop that lawsuit -- they should have just fought that lawsuit in court. Whatever they are now liable for as a result of breaching a contract with HP to continue support for Oracle DB on Itanium is something they owe for breaching that contract, not for hiring Hurd.
..they would turn around and grind Mr Larry into the ground for that. But they are only spineless MBA Cowards at the top. The grunts who did tens of thousands of HP/Oracle database server implementations - they will be screwed over for their hard work in developing millions lines of PL/SQL code. They will be screwed over for sitting long hours in front of terminals getting those Oracle-based database applications running. Ms Whitman will soon get her golden parachute and 50000 more HP employees will get the boot for helping to build the billion dollar empire of Mr Larry.
Mr Larry's next Yacht will be named "One Percent" on one side and "Screw Over" on the other side.
Because Oracle+Solaris+x86 is known to be utterly worthless and unstable compared to Oracle+HPwhatever+ia64?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
... but Itanium being Itanic is much more than one year old
The Itanium chip is a damn sick joke
Someone ought to put it out of its own misery a long, long time ago !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
that live by litigation, shall perish by litigation
Microsoft and RedHat aren't supporting your platform. Intel's latest compilers don't support Itanium either and they make the bloody thing you pay them not to EOL.
Of course you do because it doesn't fit your conspiracy theory. When you look at the facts, non existent market-share for itanium, HP paying Intel to continue production of itanium, you understand why Oracle dropped it.
Considering that as of 2011Q1, Itanium demand was still growing and annually bringing in several billion dollars in revenue, I wouldn't use the phrase "non existent market-share" to describe it. Larry basically sabotaged HP's Itanium business out of sheer spite.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?