Oracle has called on a California court to publicly reveal the sealed portions of the lawsuit HP brought against the software company over Intel's Itanium processor. HP says its happy to make the documents public, but there's a caveat involving the settlement agreement between the two companies over ex–HP CEO Mark Hurd. Even …

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Saturday 9th July 2011 12:31 GMT Dunstan Vavasour

29th June Oracle Reply

I would encourage you to read the submission Oracle sent on June 29th, references in TPM's article. It is the first time I've read a legal submission which is laugh out loud funny - got some strange looks from my colleagues in the office, mind, when I told them what I was reading.

In particular, their use of "partnership" in inverted commas brings to mind Dr Evil and the "Laser". I have no idea of the legal merits of their submission, but as knockabout stuff it is top notch.

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Saturday 9th July 2011 12:31 GMT Ken Hagan

Being a judge sounds easy

"HP is more than willing to make the complaint public"

"Oracle is not interested in withholding anything from the public."

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Saturday 9th July 2011 12:31 GMT bill 36

who' s fooling who

Last Saturday evening you stayed out all night long

Stayed with your best friend, doing nothing wrong

But you aint fooling me, cos any fool can see

You couldn't have stayed with your best friend

Cos she spent the night with me

Tell me who who who.....................:>)

Bobby Blue Bland

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Saturday 9th July 2011 20:31 GMT Matt Bryant

The redacted bits.... and the plan?

Maybe the blacked out bits refering to the Hurd settlement included that hp had to foot the bill for any cutlery, towels and bathrobes "borrowed" from hotels by Hurd during his time at hp.....

In the meantime, Larry has made a simple statement - he said hp and Intel had a "secret plan" to kill Itanium in favour of Xeon that it was hiding from customers. Surely now he has to bring said plan to court with him and prove that it was kept from hp's customers. Anything less leaves him open to accusations of having pants on fire.

/More popcorn over here, please!

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Saturday 9th July 2011 21:41 GMT Peter 39

which Court

Oracle has access to the full content of all these documents so their only reason to push for disclosure is to move the trial from the Court to the public forum.

I have no idea what in the blackey-bits but lets be clear about why Oracle want to wave them about.

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1. Sunday 10th July 2011 12:56 GMT Charles 9
  
  That's the point.
  
  Oracle knows the contents of the document, but because of the agreement is unable to reveal them itself. Now it believes the confidentiality agreement is part of an ulterior motive on the part of HP and therefore should not apply.
  
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Sunday 10th July 2011 14:03 GMT jubtastic1

Given that Oracle now employ HP's ex CEO

And Larry & Mark have been buds for some time, I'd say it's a fair bet that Itanium is getting dumped as alleged, that HP have documents to that effect, and that Oracle sees no downside in prematurely killing off a hardware partner now they have their own hardware to shift.

I would guess HP will attempt to tie all this up in court for a few years while they migrate their platform, doubt that will work out well for them though.

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1. Monday 11th July 2011 08:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  It can't be that simple
  
  But given that Oracle's entire case rests upon the statement that Itanium is being killed off, yet HP and Intel are standing firm clearly stating it isn't, then someone has to be lying or confused. I don't see why HP would be bringing this to court unless they were pretty confident in their ability to refute Oracle's claims about Itanium. Plus looking at the opposing management teams, it's Oracle with the loose cannons at the helm.
  
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  1. Monday 11th July 2011 09:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: It can't be that simple
    
    AFAIK, Intel is saying nothing.
    
    HP has to bring this to court to defend their product line, regardless of whether the claims are "true".
    
    I suspect that the court case will be drawn out (say 2 years), HP will win the case as Oracle can't provide any evidence other than witness statements (I'm assuming HP/Intel haven't committed the death of Itanium to paper...) and Itanium will be formally killed within 12 months of the case ending...
    
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    1. Tuesday 12th July 2011 08:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      Oh yes they did!
      
      Both Intel and HP denied Oracle's claims about Itanium so Intel did say something!
      
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Monday 11th July 2011 07:32 GMT FozzyBear

Why is it

That after reading a number of these articles I now keep imagining Larry, Mark, Leo, Ann and the rest of the gang from Oracle and HP in a Benny Hill stylised game of slap tickle and run antics with Yakkety Sax playing.

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Monday 11th July 2011 11:25 GMT Anonymous Coward

The Oracle motion makes interesting reading

... particularly the section where Oracle talk about their decision to discontinue development on Itanium - this is on p11 of the motion. To paraphrase what is said:

Oracle were talking to Intel about development and the context is clearly stated as being about "exadata" (oracle's Xeon based appliance). Ellison asked if focussing on Xeon was "the right thing to do". Intel said it was, and Ellison concluded that Itanium was a dead duck.

But if the context of this conversation was Oracle and Exadata, then why would Intel say anything else? If the context of the conversation had been Oracle's entire software suite then who knows what Intel's repsonse might have been? If this was the entire basis for the decision to dump Itanium it seems a little woolly to me. Surey Oracle should have gone back to Intel and said - OK, based on our conversations we are going to drop support for Itanium completely... anyone who wasn't looking to gain a competitive edge out of this move would have done that, but Larry sniffed an opportunity and didn't think through the consequences of his actions, and now here we are...

How long until we are having similar conversations about ongoing Oracle support for RHEL? They _still_ haven't announced RHEL6 certifications for their products...

The court case is a side show - the real big deal here is TRUST ORACLE AT YOUR PERIL

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