HP Continues to Support Itanium-Based Server Platform

Despite Oracle’s plans to discontinue making software for Intel (News - Alert) Itanium microprocessor based servers, Hewlett-Packard is committed to the development and support of Itanium-based Integrity server platforms with its HP-UX operating system. In fact, HP has a roadmap for the server platform that extends more than 10 years, demonstrating its commitment to support Itanium customers through the next decade and beyond.

In addition, the computer giant assured customers that it will support those who are running existing versions of Oracle (News - Alert) software on Itanium-based Integrity servers, both existing and future platforms, during the same timeframe. Last year, HP launched the industry’s most modern mission-critical architecture in more than a decade. This constitutes the longest published roadmap of any UNIX vendor in the industry, claimed HP.

In a statement, said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP, “Oracle continues to show a pattern of anti-customer behavior as they move to shore up their failing Sun server business. HP believes in fair and honest competition. Competition is good for customers, innovation and the marketplace. We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity in a shameless gambit to limit fair competition.”

Likewise, contradicting Oracle, Paul Otellini (News - Alert), president and chief executive officer, Intel Corp. said, “Intel’s work on Intel Itanium processors and platforms continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule. We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture.”

Poulson is Intel’s next-generation 32-nm, 8-core-based Itanium chip, and is on track to more than double the performance of the existing Tukwila architecture. Kittson is an officially committed roadmap product for Itanium beyond Poulson and also is in active development. Intel Itanium processor industry momentum will be highlighted in a keynote talk at the upcoming Beijing Intel Developer’s Forum, said HP.