Oracle baits HP over threat to take Itanium lawsuit public

Oracle has hit back against HP in the ongoing dispute between the two firms, threatening to go public to prove that there is no official agreement that Oracle will continue support for Itanium.

Oracle revealed in a statement that HP has threatened to make its legal complaint against Oracle public, but Oracle has responded by calling HP's bluff and claiming that it welcomes such a move.

"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 said.

"Oracle is not interested in withholding anything from the public. The complaint and the settlement agreement should be fully disclosed immediately."

The dispute has escalated since Oracle announced that it will not support the Itanium processor on which HP's servers are based, arguing that the Intel chipset is out of date.

HP claims that Oracle had agreed to continue to support the platform. However, Oracle said that HP had based this assertion on nothing more than a statement announcing the end of legal hostilities in a previous case.

This case concerned the sacking of former HP chief executive Mark Hurd, who was robustly defended by Oracle chief Larry Ellison and subsequently hired by the company as president.

HP had looked to block the move, but eventually dropped the legal case and both companies announced that they would renew working together. But Oracle claims that HP read too much into the statement issued at the time.

"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.

However, HP responded by matching Oracle's bluster and arguing it has no qualms about making the case public. It noted, though, it is partly constrained by legal terms insisted upon by Oracle during the Hurd settlement.

"There is not a single word in HP's complaint that HP is not willing to make public," it said on Friday.

"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 is also involved in a heavyweight showdown with Google over the alleged infringement of Java code in the Android operating system, for which Oracle wants $2.6bn in damages.

The battle comes as technology companies Samsung and Apple fight over allegations and counter allegations of intellectual property theft and design infringements on devices such as the iPad, iPhone and Galaxy S.