Oracle welcome move to make HP complaint public

Oracle hit back at HP earlier this month over threats to go public with its legal complaint by calling HP’s bluff.

"In a legal filing today, HP said it is more than willing to make its complaint against Oracle public. But HP is not willing to make public the settlement agreement upon which the complaint is based," the statement from Oracle said.

Oracle says they welcome the move, as they have nothing to hide from the public.

The argument started when Oracle pulled support for the Itanium processor on which HP’s servers are based. HP claim the software giant had pledged support, whilst Oracle deny such an agreement and say the Intel chip is simply out of date.

Oracle is happy for HP to disclose the settlement agreement, as, according to them, it does not exist. HP has apparently based all such hope on a joint statement issued over the Mark Hurd debacle.

“No sophisticated corporation would ever secure a supposedly life-or-death software support commitment with two fuzzy sentences that primarily deal with an employment dispute," said Oracle.
HP is not backing down. However, they are restrained by legal terms following the Hurd settlement.

“The parties negotiated an agreement on confidentiality, and that agreement is being honored by HP. Oracle and Hurd have not agreed to waive the confidentiality obligations they negotiated under the agreement and impose a significant restriction on HP."
Oracle and HP are not the only heavyweights eyeballing each other. Samsung and Apple are fighting it out over allegations of intellectual property theft over the iPhone and iPad.

It’s a dramatic IT landscape right now – and who knows who will come out on top.