Hewlett Packard Enterprise just won $3 billion in a lawsuit against Oracle

Larry Ellison

(Larry Ellison, Oracle's executive chairman and chief technology officer.REUTERS/Robert Galbraith)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has won another huge victory over Oracle and just over $3 billion in damages.

The two were back in court to determine what damages, if any, Oracle owed over its decision some years ago to stop making software for HPE's high-performance servers built on Intel's Itanium chip.

After Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and started building its own servers, it announced that it would not be making its database software for Itanium. HP sued Oracle for breach of contract a few years ago and won.

While in court to determine damages, testimony came from such folks as Mark Hurd and Larry Ellison.

The jury just announced the win for HPE.

Oracle's lawyer, Dorian Daley, says that Oracle still thinks that it's in the right and will appeal:

"Five years ago, Oracle 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 [the] end of [its] life, HP knew it, and was actively hiding that fact from its customers. Oracle never believed it had a contract to continue to port our software to Itanium indefinitely and we do 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."

Meanwhile, HPE lawyer John Schultz is, naturally, happy with the outcome:

"HP is gratified by the jury's verdict, which affirms what HP has always known and the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrated — Oracle's decision to stop future software development on the Itanium server platform in March of 2011 was a clear breach of contract that caused serious damage to HP and our customers. We very much appreciate the dedication and effort that the jury gave to this case for over 5 weeks of trial."

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