Wall St Journal Thurs 31may12 pg B1: amazing article on Oracle * HP battle

[David Combs]

First, if anyone has on-line access to it, maybe post it
here (I get only the paper version).

(Then, recall that #2 guy at Oracle used to work for HP, until
he got fired or something, then went to Oracle.)


The battle is about the Itanium chips that HP uses in its servers.

Oracle says that it will no longer produce Oracle versions
for that chip. Which should really harm HP server sales.
Oracle says it hears that Intel is going to dump that chip.

HP likes the chip, has paid, I believe, hundreds of millions
to Intel to keep them upgrading it.

This is turning into a REALLY nasty fight. In court.

There's a lot more in the article than I've summarized
here. Really is quite interesting, especially for those
of us who like Sparc and zfs.

Again, maybe someone can post it here for those few of
us still in this group. WELL worth reading!

David

[Doug McIntyre]

dkc...@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
>Oracle says that it will no longer produce Oracle versions
>for that chip. Which should really harm HP server sales.
>Oracle says it hears that Intel is going to dump that chip.

Harm the 1,000's of Itanium servers they produce a year?

HP is only into it so much because they dumped their HPPA RISC line to
produce the still-born Itanium with Intel as the fab. That plus
they've pumped hundreds of $mil as you mention into Intel to keep
it afloat. One new chip in the last four years. Maybe one this year,
maybe another 4-5 years down the road is the roadmap. They are
too proud to keep pushing that they have an Enterprise RISC chip
design to let it drop now.

>HP likes the chip, has paid, I believe, hundreds of millions
>to Intel to keep them upgrading it.

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/hp-itanium/

>This is turning into a REALLY nasty fight. In court.

>There's a lot more in the article than I've summarized
>here. Really is quite interesting, especially for those
>of us who like Sparc and zfs.

There's a lot more news outlets than the WSJ..

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/HP-Charges-Oracle-Left-It-High-and-Dry-Over-Itanium-129534/

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20779098/hp-accuses-oracle-breaking-promise-trial-server-software

http://news.yahoo.com/hp-oracle-set-court-clash-over-itanium-094122298--sector.html

[ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com]

Last I heard HP was going to abandon Itanium and migrate to X86 much like
Oracle nee Sun is doing with their servers, so I really don't understand
this unless Oracle is dumping support sooner than HP plans to be ready
with pure X86.

For some related info:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2127367/hp-unveils-roadmap-meld-integrity-servers-x86-systems

[kamal]

On Jun 6, 2:49 am, j...@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote:

> David Combs <dkco...@panix.com> wrote:
> > First, if anyone has on-line access to it, maybe post it
> > here (I get only the paper version).
>
> > (Then, recall that #2 guy at Oracle used to work for HP, until
> > he got fired or something, then went to Oracle.)
>
> > The battle is about the Itanium chips that HP uses in its servers.
>
> > Oracle says that it will no longer produce Oracle versions
> > for that chip.  Which should really harm HP server sales.
> > Oracle says it hears that Intel is going to dump that chip.
>
> > HP likes the chip, has paid, I believe, hundreds of millions
> > to Intel to keep them upgrading it.
>
> > This is turning into a REALLY nasty fight.  In court.
>
> > There's a lot more in the article than I've summarized
> > here.  Really is quite interesting, especially for those
> > of us who like Sparc and zfs.
>
> > Again, maybe someone can post it here for those few of
> > us still in this group.  WELL worth reading!
>
> > David
>
> Last I heard HP was going to abandon Itanium and migrate to X86 much like
> Oracle nee Sun is doing with their servers, so I really don't understand
> this unless Oracle is dumping support sooner than HP plans to be ready
> with pure X86.
>

their customers will not shift from Itanium to xeon just because HP
wants to. The lawsuit is to retain support for customers who have
*already* purchased itanium based unix servers. Itanium provided
enterprise-class features which are not yet available in xeon (but
intel intends to merge those features to xeon in near future).

thanks
-kamal

> For some related info:
>
> http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2127367/hp-unveils-roadmap-m...- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Rich Teer]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2012, David Combs wrote:

> The battle is about the Itanium chips that HP uses in its servers.

I really don't see what HP is whining about: Itanic was effectively
dead even before it was born. They should have kept PA-RISC, or
even licensed SPARC!

--
Rich Teer, Publisher
Vinylphile Magazine

www.vinylphilemag.com

[Cydrome Leader]

Doug McIntyre <mer...@geeks.org> wrote:
> dkc...@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
>>Oracle says that it will no longer produce Oracle versions
>>for that chip. Which should really harm HP server sales.
>>Oracle says it hears that Intel is going to dump that chip.
>
> Harm the 1,000's of Itanium servers they produce a year?

I think you mean hundreds of servers per year.

Anybody using those things is still using flat files and some apps written
in the 1970s.