For the last six weeks, Oracle and HP have been publically airing their dirty laundry in a court case that resulted from Oracle’s 2011 unilateral decision to drop support for HP’s Itanium-based servers. On August 1, Judge James Kleinberg issued his decision and order in the case, which amounted to yet another in a string of losses in court for Oracle.

In his decision, the judge strongly backed HP’s claims that its Sept. 20, 2010, contract with Oracle explicitly said that mutual product support must continue as it had in the past.

In deciding a remedy, the judge had two options: The first was to award HP a cash settlement with no requirement that Oracle support HP’s Itanium servers. The second option–the one that Judge Kleinberg chose–was to require Oracle to continue support, and for Oracle to pay for damages HP has already incurred.
Network Computing