HP and Oracle Face Each Other in Court Over Itanium Chip Lawsuit

According to the lawyer of Hewlett-Packard, Oracle’s contract with HP was violated when the former decided that its future versions of database software will no longer support a line of HP servers. This is the reason the two companies are facing each other at a court in San Jose, California. The lawsuit was filed last year by HP against Oracle where it is seeking $4 billion in damages.

Oracle has decided to end its support for Intel’s Itanium Chip which it says is already being phased out. It is interesting to note that Oracle’s Java programming language had previously lost to Google in a trial.
HP says that the decision of Oracle that led to the lawsuit will definitely hurt its customers. Additionally, it claimed that the agreement between them indicated that Oracle’s support for the chip, Itanium, was supposed to continue.  It was in last year that the company decided to stop developing database versions that support HP servers using Itanium.
It may be recalled that the relationship between the two giants has deteriorated over the year. This especially began when Mark Hurd, HP’s former Chief Executive, became Oracle’s co-president two years ago. HP said that such a move meant Oracle exploiting its knowledge on HP’s strengths and weaknesses.
A settlement has been initiated by Oracle. And according to Jeffrey Thomas, HP lawyer, it is a sign that it is going to continue to support Itanium and bind itself to manufacturing only the best for HP.
On the other hand, Oracle’s lawyer, Dan Wall, said that the Itanium is really a declining product already. Additionally, he said that HP is forcing Oracle to support Itanium which is a technology that the company does not believe in. But for now, the decision is in the hands of the jury.

From  http://featuretechs.com/hp-and-oracle-face-each-other-in-court-over-itanium-chip-lawsuit.html