Updates to this story
HP said it was shocked that Oracle is dropping support for Intel’s Itanium microprocessor and accused it of being “anti-customer”.
And it wheeled in Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini to insist that the Itanium architecture was far from dead.
Dave Donatelli, general manager of HP’s enterprise server division, said its roadmap, using Itanium Integrity HP-UX servers, extends 10 years out.
Donatelli said that Oracle is attempting to prop up its SPARC based “failing Sun server business” and “continues to show a pattern of anti-customer behaviour”.
He is aghast at the Oracle move. “We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity in a shameless gambit to limit fair competition,” he said.
Otellini said that its work on the Itanium continues with “multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule”. Poulson is the codename for its 32 nanometre eight core Itanium and will “double the performance” of its Tukwila architecture. Beyond Poulson is the Kitson.
HP said: “It is clear that Oracle customers are voting with their purchasing decisions against the Sun platform.” It described Oracle’s “disinformation” as a move to force people into buying Sun, and said it was a “desperate move to slow its declining market share”.
Oracle has a perfect right to not support anyone's hardware, just as HP has the right to create a database system. All this jibber-jabber from HP about customers is just garbage; HP cares less about actual customers than Oracle. Obviously, this move by Oracle is going to impact HP's bottom line, which is what HP is really concerned about.
So why doesn't HP have a viable DBMS? Could it be their executives are lacking in prescience?
This is a deliberate kick in the nuts, and nothing to do with SPARC or Itanium or anything technical.
It is a malicious move by a nasty, vindictive little turd who's out to get sweet revenge.