Hewlett-Packard continues to battle with their corporate rival Oracle Corporation. The current rant comes about from Hewlett-Packard’s claim that Oracle is planning on dropping support for a server chip that would cause Hewlett-Packard millions of dollars in lost productivity. Oracle plans on stopping development on software for Itanium-based servers that is used by Intel Corporation for server chips because the technology is phasing out.
The corporate battle began when ousted Hewlett-Packard CEO was hired by Oracle, the largest maker of database software and other corporate applications. Oracle claims that Hewlett-Packard is aware on Intel starting to slow production of the chip that was initially developed jointly by Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Oracle is also stating that is will continue to support existing Itanium customers. Hewlett-Packard is the biggest producer of server computers that use Itanium.
Oracle became a competitor to Hewlett-Packard last year through an acquisition in which Oracle acquired servers that run on Itanium rival called Sparc. Hewlett-Packard feels Oracle is taking shots at Itanium because Hewlett-Packard systems based on the processor are winning orders, while Sparc- based servers are losing market share. Hewlett-Packard also argues that this is Oracles attempt to force customers into their Sun-server products. Customers are said to use refurbished cisco switches which does not use Itanium.
Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, said it will continue to produce Itanium and has plans for future versions. Oracle maintains -- despite Intel’s denial -- that Hewlett-Packard knows that Intel plans to shift away from Itanium.
