Oracle and rival resellers praise Itanium microprocessor ruling

Oracle being forced to continue developing and offering new versions of its software on Itanium microprocessors, is a good thing for the industry, IBM and Oracle resellers have said.

Resellers said IBM will be able to solely focus on building its own rival products, while Oracle’s channel said the competition may urge the company to up its marketing and training efforts.

Earlier this week Oracle said it would carry on supporting the software for HP’s Itanium-based servers after it lost a lawsuit, where it had argued that it didn’t have to continue making new versions of its database software compatible with the servers.

It followed a falling out with its old friend HP, after it bought rival Sun Microsystems.

During the case it argued that there had been no contract with HP that required it to continue to support HP’s servers based on Intel Itanium chips and  Itanium was approaching the end of its life.

However, Santa Clara Superior Court judge James Kleinberg ruled that there had been a contract and Oracle should honour it.

The decision has been met with a positive outlook by both rival and Oracle resellers.

One Oracle reseller told ChannelBiz: “We had various communications from Oracle about plans for this when it all kicked off. From our point of view the ruling isn’t positive because it means we’re still in competition with HP when it comes to selling similar products from Oracle.

“However, we hope that in light of this the company will make efforts to increase training and marketing efforts to help us get the edge over our rivals.”

And not surprisingly IBM resellers have applauded the decision. One told ChannelBiz: “Oracle having to offer and develop software for what is now seen as a rival is good news for IBM, which can work and develop competitive products for its own benefits and bring in more revenue.

“I suppose it’s good news for us too because there aren’t any blurry lines about what we’re selling and what we’re not. “