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HP Asks Judge To Enforce Itanium Contract Vs. Oracle

Posted by Soulskill on from the oracle-making-a-play-for-more-courtroom-marketshare dept.

Dupple writes with this quote from a Reuters report: "Hewlett-Packard Co told a judge on Tuesday that Oracle Corp should be ordered to make its software available on HP's Itanium-based servers for as long as HP sells them. Lawyers for HP and Oracle presented closing arguments in a California state court for the first phase in a bitter lawsuit between the two tech giants. ... Oracle decided to stop developing software for use with Itanium last year, saying Intel made it clear that the chip was nearing the end of its life and was shifting its focus to its x86 microprocessor. But HP said it had an agreement with Oracle that support for Itanium would continue, without which the equipment using the chip would become obsolete. HP said that commitment was affirmed when it settled a lawsuit over Oracle's hiring of ousted HP chief executive Mark Hurd. HP seeks up to $4 billion in damages."

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. The ghost of Ken Olsen called, by soupforare · · Score: 4, Insightful

    he extends sympathies.

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    --- Do you believe in the day?
  2. Existing Customers by raehl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    HP sold Itanium boxes to customers who use them to run Oracle. Oracle stops supporting Itanium and the customers are stuck holding computers that don't do what they paid for them to do.

    There's probably penalties in HPs contracts with their customers in the event of such a circumstance. Or maybe they just don't want their customers to feel like HP screwed them.

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    paintball
  3. damages per processor ... WHY? by DragonWriter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Years ago when the itanic was sinking, I heard shipping estimates as low as 200K processors annually. I'm sure its lower now. But that implies something on the order of $20K damages per processor shipped, which is astounding.

    Why would you even think of damages in terms of "per processor shipped" (and, even worse, in terms of annual processor shipments)? Even assuming the estimates you refer to are accurate, the computation you make is meaningless.

  4. Re:Why exactly ? by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you kidding? Sparc and PPC are plenty of competition for HP in the server space. If anything, HP/UX has always been an ugly redheaded stepchild when it comes to Oracle support.

    If you're running HP, you're already trying to smash a square peg into a round hole here.

    That said: Oracle should still be held to any contracts it made.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.