Judge James Kleinberg of the San Jose District Court sided with Hewlett-Packard in their case against Oracle.  The court ruled that Oracle is to continue making software that supports HP’s Itanium chip.

The judge stated that Oracle is bound by their agreement to HP when they contracted to continue supporting the Itanium chip in return for getting Mark Hurd as Oracle’s co-president.  Hurd was HP’s CEO at the time.

“The settlement and release agreement entered into by HP, Oracle and Hurd on Sept. 20, 2010, requires Oracle to continue to offer its product suite on HP’s Itanium-based server platforms and does not confer on Oracle the discretion to decide whether to do so or not,” Kleinberg wrote.

The two parties have 15 days to file an objection to the judge’s decision.  If there are no objections filed, the case will continue with the second phase of the case which involves the jury determining whether Oracle breached their agreement with HP and how much they would have to pay for damages.  Before the trial started, HP was asking $500 million in damages, but the price increased to $4 billion based on projected losses because of Oracle’s actions.  The two are ordered back in court on August 22.

Recap

HP filed a lawsuit against Oracle as the latter allegedly stopped supporting their Itanium chips, which Oracle was contracted to support it for a few more years.  Oracle argued that they were duped by HP into supporting something that was already dying and that their hiring of Hurd was part of their devious plan.

HP is fighting for the survival of their Itanium chips, used on certain exotic, high-end systems sold by the company, as they make a lot of money from support and maintenance fees collected from companies who purchase their Itanium-based servers, without those, they’re quite screwed.  As for Oracle, they have nothing to lose if they stop supporting HP’s Itanium chips.