[Info-vax] Trial Phase 2 (was Re: HP wins Oracle Itanium case)

[JF Mezei]

Keith Parris wrote:

> Oracle has filed its objection to the court's Proposed Statement of 
> Decision: 

Not unexpected. Out of this, they may get a few concessions that may
help Oracle in the future. (see later)

At the end of the day, Oracle did sign the agreement on paper. It is
binding. And as long as there are new IA64 boxes in the pipeline it is
pretty hard for Oracle to weasel out of that paper contract.

What Oracle should have added to the contract is an opt-out cluase in
case market conditions change and BCS sales start to drop sharply or
something like that. (aka: if the business potential for IA64 based
sales of Oracle software drop significantly, Oracle obligations should
be ended.)

> "The Court’s holding ... that Oracle is obligated “to continue to offer 
> its product suite on HP’s Itanium-based server platforms” and “Oracle is 
> required to port its products to HP’s Itanium-based servers” — appears 
> to be an operative mandate."

This may be used by Oracle on many fronts. You could show that the
court/judge did not fully understand the issues by using that term
instead of specifying operating system AND IA64.

Oracle may succeed in having that text changed to be specific about
operating system(s).

And once HP announces the EOL of those systems, one could argue the
contract also becomes voided.

Oracle will want to have better definition of when that commitment can
or does end.


> "Oracle also objects to and requests clarification and findings 
> regarding the Court’s references to “continue to offer” and “port,” in 
> that it is unclear whether the Court is reading “continue to offer” to 
> mean “continue to develop” or “continue to port”."

If the court used imprecise wording, then it is normal for Oracle to
request changes/clarification to be precise in the wording. Oracle needs
to tell its shareholders how much this folly will cost it, so they need
to find out about all the dots on the "i"s  so they can properly
calculate exactly what their obligation is.

Say HP were to announce end of development for HP-UX, but continued
sales of HP-UX and IA64 boxes. Would Oracle then have a way out ? That
is what Oracle will want to have specified by the judge who clerly didn't.