A two-day break in the trial pitting HP against Oracle did not result in a settlement in the case, which focuses on Oracle's decision to stop software support of Itanium.
Hewlett-Packard and Oracle
executives reportedly failed for a second time to settle their legal dispute
over Intels Itanium platform, and the trial between the two resumed this week
in a California courthouse.
A two-day recess in the trial was
called to allow for HP and Oracle officials to try to settle their differences,
according to a
report
by Reuters. Quoting an unnamed source, the news site said that Santa Clara
County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, who is running the trial, had
urged the two companies to meet with Judge Brian Walsh for another round of
settlement talks.
Walsh reportedly had overseen
similar talks in May, which also failed to create an agreement.
With no settlement reached, the
trial, which began June 4, resumed June 13. At issue is whether Oracle violated
a contract with HP when officials last year announced that the enterprise
software giant would no longer support Intels Itanium chips platform, which
powers HPs high-end Integrity and NonStop server lines. HP and Oracle share
about 140,000 customers, many of whom run Oracles enterprise
applicationsincluding database softwareon HPs Itanium-based servers.
The crux of the disagreement is an
agreement that was reached in 2010, after HP filed suit following Oracles
hiring of ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd as president. HP claims that in the written
settlement of the lawsuit, Oracle
agreed
to continue supporting technologies used by joint customers, including the
high-end Itanium-based systems. However, Oracle executives claim that the
paragraph at issue in the settlement is not a binding contract.
Oracle officials said they ended
software development for Itanium after being told by Intel engineers that the
chip giant was planning to shut down Itanium development. Both HP and Intel
disputed the claim, saying that Itanium road maps run through much of the rest
of the decade.
HP officials argued that Oracles
move was made in hopes of harming HPs high-end server business and convincing
joint HP and Oracle customers to migrate their workloads to the SPARC/Solaris
systems, which Oracle inherited when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Oracle
executives accused HP of lying to customers and the industry about the future
of Itanium, saying HP paid Intel more that $488 million to keep the platform
alive.
HP, which has seen its Business
Critical Systems
(BCS)
group take a revenue hit since the Oracle decision, wants the courts to
order Oracle to continue supporting Itanium and pay $4 billion in damages. The
BCS group saw its revenue drop 23 percent in the first quarter. HP executives
blame the drop on the Oracle case, though analystswhile agreeing that Oracles
move has hurt HPalso have noted that sales of Unix-based systems industry-wide
have fallen.
Some businesses using HPs
Itanium-based systems have said they are looking around at alternatives,
particularly in light of the upcoming release later this year or early next of
Oracles 12c database, which will be the first not to support Itanium. Oracle
is not the only major software maker to abandon Itanium; its decision followed
similar ones by Microsoft and Red Hat.
During testimony June 13, jurors
reportedly heard from Timothy Aylott, a software executive with HP who spoke
about Oracles work in the past to migrate its software to HP-UX, HPs Unix
variant. They also heard from Martin Fink, senior vice president of HPs BSC
unit, who testified on the importance of Oracles software to HPs high-end
Itanium systems. Fink reportedly is expected to continue testifying June 14.
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