U.S. Judge Rejects Oracle’s Fraud Claim Against HP

The Register: The judge overseeing HP’s Itanium-related lawsuit against Oracle has dismissed one of Oracle’s counter-claims. Oracle had accused HP of fraud for withholding information about its plans to hire Leo Apotheker and Ray Lane when the two companies reached a settlement related to Mark Hurd’s departure from HP and subsequent hiring at Oracle. The Hurd Agreement contains a clause in which Oracle promised to continue its relationship with HP. HP claims that Oracle violated that clause by dropping support for HP’s Itanium line of servers.

In response to the court’s decision, HP said it was “pleased” and added, “We look forward to seeing the facts made public that demonstrate how Oracle’s March 2011 announcement to no longer develop software for Itanium servers was part of a calculated business strategy to drive hardware sales from Itanium to inferior Sun servers.”

Oracle ignored the fact that the court found against its fraud claim and issued a statement which read, “Oracle is delighted that the Superior Court of the State of California, Santa Clara County, has rejected HP’s attempt to hide the truth about Itanium’s certain end of life from its customers, partners and own employees. We look forward to seeing all of the facts made public that demonstrate how HP has known for years that Itanium is end of life.”