Oracle Flaunts HP Internal Memos in Battle of Itanium

HP and Intel call it Itanium. But others call it the Itanic. This difference of opinion goes a long way toward describing the ongoing court battle between HP and another giant of the tech world: Oracle.
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HP and Intel call it Itanium. But others call it the Itanic.

This difference of opinion goes a long way toward describing the ongoing legal battle between HP and another giant of the tech world: Oracle.

Designed by HP and Intel, Itanium is a microprocessor that drives large servers. When it debuted over a decade ago, the chip was supposed to become the de facto standard for big iron, but this never really happened. HP is now the only major server maker selling machines that use the chip, and though Oracle has long offered databases and other software for these machines, it unexpectedly pulled the plug on this software in March of last year.

HP promptly sued Oracle, saying that Oracle had reneged on contractual agreements and was undermining the well-being of businesses using Itanium servers. But Oracle countersued, saying it halted development on its Itanium software because the chip was on the verge of death.

>"This is a MAJOR, MAJOR issue. We need to be able to tell the market that you never told Oracle about end-of-life plans for Itanium."

The trial won't kick off until the beginning of June, but this week, the fireworks started early when Oracle unloaded a raft of HP internal documents onto the internet. The 12 documents appear to show that -- behind the scenes -- Intel has long threatened to pull the plug on Itanium.

"Intel dropped a bomb on us last night," reads an Aug. 30, 2007 e-mail from Martin Fink, the head of HP’s high-end server business, indicating that Intel had threatened to cancel development of "Poulsen," a future version of Itanium.

Oracle posted the emails and other documents just after Bloomberg BusinessWeek published a story covering these same documents, which were turned up as part of the court case.

Asked to comment, HP sent us a statement pointing out that Intel has said publicly, on several occasions, that Itanium is not approaching the end of its life. "The undeniable fact is there is committed support for Itanium that extends out toward the end of this decade," HP says. "Statements that Itanium was at or near an end of life are false."

HP's statement goes on to say that when other court documents are unsealed, "the public can see the undisputed facts of Intel’s Itanium roadmap clearly showing a long and sustained future for Itanium." Lawyers for two tech giants met on Wednesday in an effort to reach a pre-trial settlement, but no additional documents were unsealed.

Intel declined to comment on the matter.

Later in the day, an HP spokesman sent us additional court documents, saying they show that as of 2010, Intel was excited about the prospects of K22 -- a future version of Itanium -- and that Oracle was intent on undermining HP's business. "We are going to fuck hp,” reads one instant message between two Oracle execs.

A year ago, when Oracle suddenly announced it would cease development of its Itanium software, many saw the move as a shameless effort to leave HP in the lurch. After acquiring server maker Sun Microsystems, Oracle was very much an HP competitor, and HP had recently jettisoned CEO Mark Hurd, an old tennis buddy of Oracle boss Larry Ellison, a man known to act on personal grudges in guiding the direction of his massive software company.

But in posting those court documents to the web, Oracle is attempting to show that it made the decision purely because Itanium was in its death throes -- and win some points in the court of public opinion.

"At this time, there are many documents that have been disclosed through litigation that describe the true state of Itanium in Hewlett-Packard's own words," reads an open letter from Jeb Dasteel, Oracle senior vice president and chief customer officer. "Rather than us interpreting this situation for you, we thought we would give you access to the public HP documents so you can make your own decision regarding your investments in Itanium technology.

"After reading these documents we are confident that you will agree with our decision, taken with the best interest of our joint customers in mind."

With this open letter, Oracle published the 12 HP internal documents, including e-mails, and they're dated between August 2007 and April 2011. They begin with Fink's e-mail claiming Intel had just "dropped a bomb."

In another e-mail, dated several days later, HP's Scott Stallard tells Fink: "don't possibly signal to world end of IPF roadmap." IPF being shorthand for "Itanium Processor Family." Then, in an e-mail dated almost a year later, June 2009, Fink says that "the Itanium situation is one of our most closely guarded secrets and we have not wanted to let the region/field know about it since all it would do is give them another reason not to sell."

Oracle also posted internal HP e-mails sent after Larry Ellison and company announced they would cease development of their Itanium software, and these indicate that Intel also told Oracle it intended to put Itanium out to pasture. "This is a MAJOR, MAJOR issue. We need to be able to tell the market that you never told Oracle about EOL plans for Itanium," reads a March 2011 e-mail from Fink to an Intel exec. "This is a CRITICAL element of the HP/Intel relationship. I don't view this as optional."

Naturally, HP believes these e-mails tell only part of the story. In sending additional court documents to Wired, a company spokesman also tried to show that Oracle intended to hide security patches from active Itanium customers in an effort to undermine the platform.

"Not sure what exactly is going on, but hiding the existence of the security patches for HP-UX only makes things difficult for our customers," the e-mail reads, referring to the HP operating system used on its Itanium servers. "Our customers pay the same amount for support on HP as they on Sun, so they really need to continue to get the same quality of service."

In other words, the trial has yet to begin, but Oracle and HP are asking you to go ahead and try it now.