Itanium

In Itanium legal tiff, HP wins over Oracle

Oracle just can't catch a break in any of its courtroom battles lately. Hewlett-Packard has just won a major court ruling in the Itanium case against the hardware giant.

Here are the key points in the ruling handed down by the Superior Court of California this afternoon:

The Settlement and Release Agreement entered into by HP and Oracle in September 2010 required Oracle to continue to offer its product suite on HP’s Itanium-based server platforms and didn't permit Oracle to decide on its own whether to do so or not. That agreement also pertains to any Oracle … Read more

Customer contact info leaked by HP in case against Oracle

It's been a haphazard week for the security of personal data with major leaks at LinkedIn and now Last.fm.

You can add some probably now-unhappy Oracle customers to that list thanks to some legal documents that have popped up in the hardware giant's legal battle against Hewlett-Packard going on right now.

As reported by Wired, Oracle received "hundreds of complaints" from customers after the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company announced it would be discontinuing support for the Itanium processor, making a lot of HP databases rather useless. In a nutshell, that's what started this whole lawsuit … Read more

HP edges away from Itanium, adds x86 to servers

HP has said it will add x86 capabilities to its Itanium-based range of servers in a project code-named Odyssey.

The scheme, announced by the company on Wednesday, will see HP develop software and hardware to make x86 chips a better fit for high-end workloads that are typically dealt with by Intel's IA-64 Itanium processor.

HP will make a new range of x86 blade servers that will fit inside the HP Superdome 2 and Itanium versions of the c-Class server chassis. These blades are codenamed DragonHawk and HydraLynx, respectively. The company will also bring some high-end features from its HP-UX … Read more

HP recruiting EU in its Itanium fight against Oracle

Hewlett-Packard is calling in reinforcements from Europe to help it in its latest battle against Oracle.

The PC maker has asked European Union antitrust officials to investigate whether Oracle acted improperly by ending support for Intel's Itanium microprocessor, according to Reuters.

In June, HP launched a lawsuit against Oracle, alleging that the database giant's decision to stop making software for Itanium was simply an attempt to drive business away from HP and toward Oracle. Oracle had announced in March that it would no longer develop software for the chip. But HP has been heavily invested in using Itanium … Read more

Oracle: Reports of Itanium's life greatly exaggerated

Oracle filed court papers this week alleging that a "secret" deal between Itanium developers HP and Intel is the only reason for the continued existence of the long-troubled chip--for which the business-software giant is ending its support.

"HP has secretly contracted with Intel to keep churning out Itaniums so that HP can maintain the appearance that a dead microprocessor is still alive," reads the filing, which All Things Digital's Arik Hesseldahl describes as a routine affair about the discovery process and timing in HP's lawsuit against Oracle for dropping the chip.

HP alleges that … Read more

Oracle's choice to nix Itanium support hurts HP sales

Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are at odds over Itanium support and the former appears to be taking the body blows.

In June, HP filed a civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of California in Santa Clara to force Oracle to support the Itanium platform. In March, Oracle had said it would stop supporting HP's Itanium platform because Intel planned to shut it down in the long run. HP and Intel both denied Oracle's claims. The two parties last month exchanged courtroom jabs over Itanium support.

Now it appears that Oracle's Itanium decisions are impacting sales of HP's … Read more

Hewlett-Packard sues Oracle over Itanium support

Making good on a threat issued in a letter last week , Hewlett-Packard has filed a lawsuit against software giant Oracle, asking a court to require Oracle to meet what HP says are requirements that it continue to produce software that supports the Intel Itanium server processor.

In the suit, filed in a California Superior Court in Santa Clara, HP accuses Oracle of engaging in a "calculated effort to thwart competition from HP and harm its customers," and asks the court to force Oracle to live up to contractual commitments to support mutual customers by reversing a decision to … Read more

The end of comity in IT

Comity (noun):

A state or atmosphere of courtesy, considerate behavior, and mutual respect towards others; harmonious relations.Friendly understanding and mutual recognition between entities such as corporations, organizations, and nations.Something increasingly scarce in the IT industry.

IT started as a vertically integrated industry. Companies like DEC and IBM built almost everything from CPUs to application software themselves. But the last 30 years moved IT to a "horizontal" business model. Most vendors built components that would be later integrated by systems vendors, implementation partners, or customers themselves into "the complete solution." The rise of networking and &… Read more

Oracle declares Intel's Itanium dead

Oracle has signed the death certificate for Intel's Itanium chips, saying that none other than Intel has decided to end the high-end processor family.

The old software giant and new server maker announced yesterday that it has "decided to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor." After several discussions, Oracle said, "Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life."

Nonsense, said Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini in a reply today.

"Intel's work on Intel Itanium … Read more

Intel previews next Itanium mainframe chip

Intel is previewing its next Itanium processor today and improvements include better power management, reliability, and architecture. No timeline was set for the next Itanium, code-named Poulson.

The next Itanium will be designed to take advantage of advances in the Xeon processor architecture. The two chips will also be pin compatible. Itanium is targeted at the Unix and mainframe markets. Xeons handle Windows, Solaris, and Linux machines

Rory M. McInerney, vice president of the Intel Architecture Group and director of the Microprocessor Development Group, planned to preview Itanium at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.