Oracle Ordered To Pay Hewlett-Packard Enterprise $3 Bln In Itanium Case

(RTTNews) - A jury in Silicon Valley on Thursday ordered Oracle Corp (ORCL) to pay Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co (HPE) $3 billion in damages in a lawsuit over HP's Itanium servers.

Oracle said that it intends to appeal both today's ruling and the prior ruling from Judge Kleinberg.

The Itaniuum processor is made by Intel Inc (INTC).

Oracle said that, five years ago, it made a software development announcement which accurately reflected the future of the Itanium microprocessor. Two trials have now demonstrated clearly that the Itanium chip was nearing end of life, HP knew it, and was actively hiding that fact from its customers.

Oracle noted that it never believed it had a contract to continue to port its software to Itanium indefinitely and it does not believe so today; nevertheless, Oracle has been providing all its latest software for the Itanium systems since the original ruling while HP and Intel stopped developing systems years ago.

"Further, it is very clear that any contractual obligations were reciprocal and HP breached its own obligations. Now that both trials have concluded, we intend to appeal both today's ruling and the prior ruling from Judge Kleinberg," Dorian Daley, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary, Oracle.