HP claims win in legal battle with Oracle

Hewlett-Packard declared victory Wednesday in a legal dispute in which it accused business software titan Oracle of reneging on a contract to use HP servers. HP said a California state court ruled that Oracle is bound to a contract to link its software products to HP's Itanium-based servers. "We expect Oracle to comply with its contractual obligation as ordered by the court," HP said in a statement. HP said the 2010 contract requires Oracle to continue to offer its product suite on HP's Itanium-based server platforms and allow Oracle to opt out. Oracle had argued that HP's legal claim was not true and that Oracle's decision was based on word from Intel that the Itanium chip line was approaching the end of its lifespan. HP's board members and management team know about Intel plans to phase out the Itanium microprocessor, Oracle contended.