HP is asking the court to rule ahead of the May 31 trial that Oracle is contractually obligated to support future generations of Itanium. Oracle disputes the claim.
Hewlett-Packard
and Oracle are both looking for the court to give them pretrial rulings in the
case surrounding Oracles decision last year to no longer develop software for
Intels Itanium processor platform.
Oracle
executives in March 2011 said they were ending support for Itanium, a high-end
chip architecture that HP uses in its massive Integrity and NonStop servers.
The executives claimed that Intel engineers told them they were planning to end
development of Itanium in favor of it the companys more popular x86-based Xeon
chips.
HP sued,
claiming that Oracles decision violated an agreement the two companies had to
continue support of their mutual clients. HP claims the two companies share
about 140,000 customers, with many running Oracles software on Itanium-based
systems from HP.
Oracle
officials have countersued HP, claiming among other things that HP was guilty
of false advertisement for not telling Oracle or its customers that HP was
paying Intel about $88 million a year to continue development of Itanium.
The two
sidesonce close partnershave traded accusations throughout the past year. The
case is scheduled for
trial in May.
HP on March 26
filed a motion asking a judge to rule now that Oracle is contractually
obligated to continue developing software for Itanium systems. Oracle in its
filing disagreed with HPs claims. In a second filing, HP is asking the court
to dismiss Oracles countersuit.
The
relationship between the two Silicon Valley giants has been disintegrating for
more than a year. Oracle in 2010
bought Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, a move
that includes Suns data center hardware business, putting it in more direct
competition with HP. Later in the year, after HP's then-CEO Mark Hurd was
forced to resign, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison sharply criticized how HPs board of
directors handled the situation. Oracle then hired Hurd as president. HP sued
Hurd and Oracle over the possibility of Hurd revealing trade secrets to his new
employer.
HP and Oracle
eventually settled the case, but the animosity was cranked even higher when HP
hired Leo Apothekerformer CEO of Oracle software rival SAPto replace Hurd.
Apotheker was replaced last year by former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
HP officials
have argued in the pastand did so again in their filingthat Oracle General
Counsel Dorian Daley at the time of the settlement over Hurds hiring agreed
that the two vendors would continue to work together as they had in the past.
HP has said that includes continuing to support Oracle software on Itanium
systems. HP is by far the top user of Itanium chips.
It is time for
Oracle to quit pursuing baseless accusations and honor its commitments to HP
and to our shared customers," HP officials said in a statement released
March 26.
Oracle
officials have framed Daleys comments as more of a simple statement than a
legally binding agreement.
"We don't
believe, nor do we think HP really believes, that a settlement agreement
relating to Mark Hurd's employment could possibly obligate Oracle to write new
software for a platform that is clearly [at the] end of life," Oracle
attorney Dan Wall said, according to a
Reuters report.
Throughout the
yearlong debate, Intel executives, including CEO Paul Otellini, have said that
Intel has no intention of ending development of Itanium, adding that the giant
chip maker has a product road map that extends the life of the platform through
at least the end of the decade.
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