1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 HP’SNOVEMBER22,2011CASEMANAGEMENTCONFERENCESTATEMENT:CASENO.:1-11-CV-203163 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP ROBERT E. COOPER (SBN 35888) [email protected]SAMUEL G. LIVERSIDGE (SBN 180578) [email protected]333 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90071-3197 Telephone: 213.229.7000 Fax: 213.229.7520 BARTLIT BECK HERMAN PALENCHAR & SCOTT LLP MARK E. FERGUSON ( pro hac vice) [email protected]SEAN W. GALLAGHER ( pro hac vice) [email protected]54 West Hubbard Street, Suite 300 Chicago, Illinois 60654 Telephone: 312.494.4400 Facsimile: 312.494.4400 Attorneys for Plaintiff and Cross-Defendant, HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. ORACLE CORPORATION, Defendant. CASE NO.:1-11-CV-203163 Action Filed: June 15, 2011 Trial Date: February 27, 2012 HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT Assigned For All Purposes To The Honorable James P. Kleinberg Hearing Date: November 22, 2011 Time: 10:00 a.m. Dept: 1 ORACLE CORPORATION, Cross-Complainant, v. HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY, Cross-Defendant. CONDITIONALLY FILED UNDER SEAL PURSUANT TO STIPULATED PROTECTIVE ORDER ENTERED ON OCTOBER 17, 2011
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HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher LLP
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLPROBERT E. COOPER (SBN 35888)[email protected] G. LIVERSIDGE (SBN 180578)[email protected] South Grand AvenueLos Angeles, CA 90071-3197
Telephone: 213.229.7000Fax: 213.229.7520
BARTLIT BECK HERMAN PALENCHAR & SCOTT LLPMARK E. FERGUSON ( pro hac vice)[email protected] W. GALLAGHER ( pro hac vice)[email protected] West Hubbard Street, Suite 300Chicago, Illinois 60654Telephone: 312.494.4400Facsimile: 312.494.4400
Attorneys for Plaintiff and Cross-Defendant,HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOR THE COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA
HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY,
Plaintiff,
v.
ORACLE CORPORATION,
Defendant.
CASE NO.:1-11-CV-203163
Action Filed: June 15, 2011Trial Date: February 27, 2012
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
Gibson, Dunn &
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Oracle seeks to delay the trial in this matter. Given that Oracle has undertaken a business
strategy that is harming customers and HP’s business, in violation of Oracle’s contractual
commitments, HP does not want to delay. HP wants Oracle to honor its contractual commitments
and to answer for its conduct as soon as possible.1
A. Introductory Statement
1. Oracle’s Anti-Customer Business Strategy To Leverage Its Software DominanceTo Drive Hardware Sales From Itanium To Inferior Sun Servers.
Oracle’s internal documents make clear that Oracle’s announcement in March 2011 that it
would no longer develop or support software for Itanium servers was implemented as part of a
calculated business strategy to leverage Oracle’s dominance in database software to try to force
Itanium customers to purchase Sun servers. Oracle’s documents reveal that its public announcement
that it was ending support for Itanium because Itanium was at an “end of life” was a pure pretext to
hide Oracle’s real purpose: to take away the choice of Itanium from customers and restrict the
competition faced by its inferior Sun servers. While Oracle styles itself a champion of customers in
its CMC Statement, the reality is that Oracle is lying to the marketplace and harming competition to
the detriment of customers.
Oracle knew that its hardware products were weak. As one Oracle executive wrote in 2011,
“Our hardware offering is simply not strong enough to enable the channel to grow if we do not blend
our offering with the software stack.” (ORCL00177574.) Oracle also knew that its SPARC/Solaris
server sales were on the decline. To compensate, Oracle implemented a series of tactics designed to
undermine competition on the merits and force customers to migrate to Sun servers. These tactics
included, and continue to include, pricing misconduct, withholding of benchmarking scores that show
that HP server products outperform Oracle products and then offering misleading advertisements that
capitalize on the withheld benchmarks, abusing customers on support issues, and, finally, cutting off
1Oracle says in its CMC Statement that HP refused to sign on to a Joint CMC Statement unless
Oracle removed its explanation for the filing of its forthcoming Amended Cross-Complaint. Thisis a mischaracterization of the facts. HP refused to sign the proposed Joint CMC Statement
because Oracle misrepresented the topics to be covered in the joint statement and tried to include
at the last minute arguments and evidence regarding the merits of the case. HP appreciates theCourt allowing HP additional time to file this CMC statement.
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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software support for Itanium, despite a clear contractual commitment that required Oracle to continue
to support HP hardware platforms. A senior Oracle hardware executive confirmed Oracle’s plans
with respect to the sale of Sun server products with direct and vulgar language, writing that “hp is
dead” because “we have a lot up our sleeve” and “we are going to fuck hp.” (ORCL00364933.)
Immediately after Oracle’s fraudulent announcement that Itanium was near its “end of life”
hit the wires on March 22, 2011, Oracle exhorted its sales force to strike at HP’s base of Itanium
customers now that Oracle believed there was blood in the water. The day after the announcement,
an Oracle executive tried to whip up Oracle’s sales force to go in for the kill with Itanium customers
now that Itanium was vulnerable:
We need to make this BIG, and get out AHEAD of IBM. I want that list of accountswith Oracle on Superdome. I want [] calls from our HW Reps THIS WEEK to the top
500 those customers to open a dialogue about future directions for their mission-critical Oracle workloads running on HP-UX. And I want to document outcomes.
(ORCL00001531-532.) Oracle’s internal documents describe Oracle’s sales strategy based on its
Itanium announcement as a competitive assault targeted at HP server customers running Oracle
databases – a “‘competitive take out’ sales play – go to HPUX customers and move them to our
gear.” (ORCL00105401-403.) Oracle referred to its Itanium plan as the “HP Superdome Takeout
Program,” “our HP attack initiative,” and “HP Away.” (ORCL0031306; ORCL00011773.)
Oracle identified over 750 Itanium customers and directed its sales force to call every single
one to use the uncertainty about Itanium’s future created by Oracle’s fraudulent announcement to
coerce them into abandoning Itanium for Sun servers. On March 23, 2011, an Oracle executive
wrote, “Monday the entire hardware sales force and channels team gets trained on the messages of
our announcement. . . . Monday night they start calling 769 itanium customers and the top 50 VARS
for meetings explaining our announcement, talking about M and Exa series as alternatives to itanium,
and offering up Insight migration workshops to customers.” (ORCL00353524-526.) Oracle
internally touted its fraudulent Itanium announcement as creating a huge sales opportunity for Oracle.
On March 24, 2011, an Oracle executive wrote:
Today’s Oracle announcement is a very significant milestone. The implications for our customers and our opportunities is immense. It is absolutely CRITICAL that weseize this opportunity to engage and execute. . . . To this end, at tomorrow’s Forecast
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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Meeting I will first review yesterday’s Itanium announcement with you and our immediate action plan. . . . Following the launch of our engagement activities, we will begin tracking all customer engagements in a similar manner to the CLARITY program last spring. My personal objective will be to have contacted all 485 identifiedcustomers from Tim Kelly’s work in the following 48 hours, and to confirm this in our tracking.
(ORCL00011631.)
So while Oracle was telling the marketplace that Itanium was a dying business and that Oracle
was being forced to go in a different direction, internally it knew and said just the opposite – that
“[t]his is a huge opportunity for us and everyone should be fired up” and “[t]here’s so much for us to
go after and win out there.” (ORCL00027014-018; ORCL00001653-655.)
Oracle targeted customers who owned HP Superdome servers running Oracle databases,
knowing that Oracle’s announcement had its intended effect and created concern about the continued
viability of operating Itanium servers. Oracle documents in fact reveal that it urged its sales teams to
create fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of customers about the risks of not migrating off
Itanium, suggesting high-level messages to be used with customers. (ORCL00353871.) On March
28, 2011, an Oracle sales executive wrote, “The main targets are HP Superdomes running Oracle
databases. . . . This is the ideal time to convince Superdome customers to migrate their hardware
platform to a brand new SPARC server and Oracle storage.” (ORCL00313028-036.) As one Oracle
executive reported, “We’re launching a North American initiative on Monday to meet and present to
every HP Itanium shop in the US and Canada, and accelerate discussions to move them to Exa*
and/or Sparc.” (ORCL00001653-655.)
When the Oracle sales force did not initially respond with the urgency Oracle’s executives
had hoped for in terms of aggressively targeting HP’s Itanium customer base in the immediate
aftermath of the Itanium announcement, Oracle’s executives ratcheted up the pressure on them. An
Oracle senior executive wrote on March 30, 2011, a week after the announcement, “I am F2F with
Keith on this today. He wants to know how many customers we’ve contacted since the 2pm All
Hands Monday. And he wants to know of the customers we contacted that will NOT take a meeting,
WHY NOT and WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT? . . . Maybe we need a fucking bonfire, not a
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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match. My impression is the Sales Managers (and by definition the Sales Reps) do not get the gravity
or urgency. We can fix by forcing now.” (ORCL00012718-722.)
Oracle’s efforts to unseat Itanium at HP’s customers did not stop with its false statements
about Itanium’s future viability. Oracle has also attempted to strong-arm customers into replacing
their existing Itanium servers by cutting off support, including bug fixes and patches for software
defects. Stunningly, this directive came all the way from the top. Not long before Oracle’s public
announcement regarding Itanium, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison directed Oracle to stop providing certain
bug fixes for Itanium customers. In an email to his senior executive team, including Oracle Co-
Presidents Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, Ellison wrote, “Have we updated our support policies to
clearly communicate that there be no more one off patches for Itanium?” (ORCL00976929.)
Regardless of what Ellison may have believed about the future of sales of new Itanium servers, it
cannot justify his edict to withdraw support for existing Itanium customers, who were left high and
dry by Oracle with bugs and other defects in their Oracle software because they had the temerity to
previously purchase HP Itanium servers.
Customers recognized the unfairness of Oracle’s actions and the utter disregard Oracle was
showing for the best interests of its own customers. They complained bitterly to Oracle that they had
never seen such disregard for customers and disregard for fair competition, but to no avail. Here is
just a small sample of the reaction of customers in emails sent to Oracle’s executives:
• Seldom have I seen such a blatant disregard for the market, customers and fair competition. No valid reason has been provided for no longer developingoracle on itanium except the obvious covert reason of removing competition.It would have been more respectable if the announcement made was given based on the competition argument. To try to blame intel - who have a nice balance between X64 and itanium - as if they would suddenly stop wanting tomake money from a high end solution is beyond me. Oracle have proved to bethe most dishonorable company I have ever come across - licensing, support,competition, sales methods are without doubt akin to many third world
dictators.
• In my 35+ years of experience in this business I have never witness such a blatant and deliberate act aimed at destroying competition, while caring not awhit about your customers. Your customers will suffer from your shortsighted and egomaniacal decision on Itanium, as well as your competitors.But, I guess you do not care about your customer running on Itanium do you?… In the end, I utterly despise Oracle’s business practices, lack of trueintegrity and business ethics!
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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• I never thought I’d see Oracle publish an out-an-out lie just to stick it to acompetitor, re: that the Intel Itanium chip is nearing end-of-life. This wholething is shameful ad just makes Oracle/Sun look bad, and makes Larry Ellisonlook stupid. Five years ago Ellison said: ‘There is no more important platformfor Oracle than HP and Itanium.’ You’re not a reliable, honest business partner. An amazingly reckless act.
•
I see the move of stopping development of software on Itanium as amonopolistic move and will kill the competition and will severely impact thecustomer rights.
(ORCL00000754.)
One public sector customer highlighted the unfair impact Oracle’s decision to not support
Itanium would have on cash-strapped government entities and other public sector customers who
could not afford to switch platforms at Oracle’s whim:
In the public sector, we are unable to secure funding for frequent server upgrades, nevertheless we are expected to maintain the most current softwareenvironment on our servers. Oracle’s decision to drop Itanium developmentwill hinder our support efforts and certainly will negatively influence our viewof Oracle and its attitude toward customer support.
( Id.)
Customers immediately recognized Oracle’s Itanium business strategy as self-serving and
anti-customer. In particular, customers expressed dismay at the prospect of being forced by Oracle to
purchase what they view as low-quality, unreliable Sun servers in the future. One Oracle customer
summed his view up in an email to Safra Catz:
Oracle’s decision to cut support for Itanium servers (and consequently HP-UX)is short sited and anti-customer. I believe that Oracle is simply trying to pushcustomers to Sparc based solutions. I will be pushing our customer to movetowards RHEL Linux in the future in order to not reward your anti-competitive behavior. System engineers I’ve talked to in multiple locations (governmentand civilian) have all stated that Sun support has gone through the toilet sincethe purchase by Oracle. The Itanium/HP-UX combination has provided our customer with a stable sure platform superior to anything Sun based. Supportservices are also far better than any interaction we’ve had with Oracle.
(ORCL00340868-69.)
Oracle’s customers contrasted Oracle’s lack of integrity and poor quality Sun servers with
HP’s track of honoring and supporting its customers. Many Oracle customers saw through Oracle’s
false rationales for its Itanium decision and recognized Oracle’s plan for exactly what it was: a
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher LLP
clumsy and ham-fisted attempt to prop up the declining sales of an inferior line of Sun servers. One
customer wrote to Larry Ellison directly:
HP has a 10-year roadmap for HPUX and it is the longest in the industry. HPwill provide a transition path for its HPUX customer base. It’s in HP’s DNAto honour their customers. We understand fully the motivation behind the
decision to terminate development for HPUX / Itanium because we are notidiots. It is a function of two facts: [1] Sun server sales are decaying in linewith the underlying hardware platform. [2] A ‘toxic’ ex-HP CEO has beenhired by Oracle. Of course Oracle will never confess to this but the temporal proximity of these events / facts is compelling evidence.
(ORCL00976164.)
Yet, despite all of this evidence from its own documents, Oracle asks the Court in its Case
Management Conference Statement, “So why is Oracle the defendant in this case?” The answer is
obvious, even to Oracle’s own customers.
2. Oracle’s Feigned Rationale For Its Business Decision Is Contrary To TheUndisputed Facts About Intel’s Itanium Roadmap.
Oracle initially tried to justify its Itanium decision by falsely ascribing to Intel the position
that Itanium is at end of life. Having been embarrassed by Intel’s unequivocal and repeated
statements to the marketplace that Itanium is not at an end of life, Oracle has been forced to come up
with new excuses, the most recent of which is nonsensical. In its November 18, 2011 CMC
statement, Oracle tries to rationalize its Itanium decision by arguing that, despite the undisputed
existence of committed support for Itanium that stretches to the end of this decade and beyond, Intel
would not have made this commitment to Itanium if it were not for a contractual agreement with HP.
Oracle’s feigned “shock” that there is a contract between HP and Intel related to the development of
Itanium is too much.
Oracle repeatedly refers to HP’s and Intel’s agreement regarding Itanium as “secret,” as if
having a confidential agreement were somehow nefarious.2 For one thing, the fact that HP and Intel
had a contractual business relationship regarding Itanium development and supply is not a “secret.”
2It is common practice for companies to have confidential agreements with customers, suppliers
and partners. Oracle itself must have hundreds of confidential agreements with third parties.
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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the relevant Itanium roadmaps in its possession, it never once discusses those roadmaps or the actual
“facts” regarding what is coming from Intel.
What those documents show, and what Oracle knows, is that there are two more generations
of Itanium microprocessors already on the roadmap – code named Poulson and Kittson. Moreover,
Intel has stated publicly and directly to customers that it has started exploratory work for what comes
after Kittson. As Intel wrote to customers in March of this year:
Last year we introduced the Itanium 9300 series processor (code name Tukwila)which more than doubled the performance of its predecessor. Recently we disclosedour next generation Itanium processor (code name Poulson), which is currently in Inteland customer labs for validation and is on track with targeted availability in 2012.This product is a brand new architecture design that will provide significant performance, reliability and power enhancements, and will be delivered on Intel’snewest 32 nm manufacturing process technology. Following will be Kittson, of whichwe are in the architecture and early development phase, and we are currently starting
exploratory work for what comes after Kittson. We firmly believe that the Itanium platform provides a sound foundation for mission critical computing well through thiscoming decade.
(Intel “Itanium Commitment Letter” (Kirk Skaugen), sent to customers March 2011.)
Indeed, Intel’s reaction to Oracle’s false statements in its March 2011 announcement about
Itanium being at end of life was swift and strong. Oracle based its decision to discontinue support for
Itanium on the claim that “Intel . . . made it clear . . . that Itanium was nearing the end of its life.”
(Oracle Press Release, March 22, 2011.) The next day, on March 23, Paul Otellini, CEO and
Chairman of Intel, repudiated Oracle’s accusation, declaring that “Intel’s work on Intel
Itanium . . . continues unabated with multiple generations . . . in development and on schedule. . . .
[W]e remain . . . [committed to] . . . HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the
Itanium architecture.” (Intel Press Release, March 23, 2011.)
Oracle argues that a line HP suggested for Intel’s press statement was left out. But Intel’s
executives in their press statements could not have been any more clear or unequivocal about Intel’s
commitment to the continued development of Itanium and the future of Itanium, stating that
development of Itanium “continues unabated with multiple generations” and that Intel maintains a
“strong commitment to the Itanium processor family” and is “enthusias[tic] about the future of the
product line.” ( Id.; Itanium Commitment Letter.) Intel in fact communicated privately to Oracle that
its announcement regarding Itanium’s end-of-life was completely inaccurate. In a March 23, 2011
HP’S NOVEMBER 22, 2011 CASE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE STATEMENT: CASE NO.: 1-11-CV-203163
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email to Oracle regarding Oracle’s announcement an Intel executive wrote, “This took our company
by complete surprise. Unclear if you or any of your team had a part in this, but not only is this totally
inaccurate, but it puts us in a terrible situation with our largest customer.” (ORCL00177387.)
What this means, and what is undeniable, is that Oracle’s statements to the marketplace in
March 2011 in connection with its Itanium announcement that Itanium was at or “near” an “end-of-
life” were false, plain and simple. Oracle apparently recognizes that now and wants to rationalize
away its misstatements by blaming HP and Intel for not publicly disclosing all of the details of the
inner-workings of their collaboration. This will not work. The facts regarding the Itanium roadmap
cannot be disputed. If Oracle files the cross-claims it has previewed in its CMC Statement, HP looks
forward to responding to those claims and having the actual facts come to light.
B. The Parties Are On Track For The Existing Trial Date They Agreed To And OracleShould Not Be Allowed To Unduly Delay The Trial Date While Implementing ABusiness Strategy To Continue To Harm HP And Customers.
A few months ago, in connection with the initial Case Management Conference, HP urged the
Court to set an expedited trial schedule that would resolve first the core contractual issues in this
case. HP explained that early resolution of the contractual issues not only would assist in moving this
case toward effective ADR and possible final resolution, but it would be by far the best approach for
the thousands of HP and Oracle customers who truly need certainty and clarity over this dispute.
Oracle, however, strongly rejected this idea, saying “bifurcation is unnecessary because Oracle is
willing to expedite the discovery schedule for the entire case, so that HP will not suffer any prejudice
due to delay.” Oracle argued as follows:
HP claims one central justification for bifurcating this case: that early resolution of the parties’ disputes will provide clarity and certainty to the parties and their customers, and minimize supposed damage to HP’s business. But bifurcation is notneeded for speedy resolution. Oracle has told HP repeatedly that it will move forwardexpeditiously as to all of the claims in this litigation. HP seeks to limit focus to a
portion of a single claim for strategic benefit, not in the interests of time.
So there is no doubt, Oracle asks the Court to set a very expedited discovery and trialschedule—but on all claims, not the fractional claim that most advantages HP and prejudices Oracle. If that means a trial set in early 2012, as HP seeks on its singlegerrymandered issue, no problem. Oracle is eager to resolve this case, provide clarityto the market and clear its name. Indeed, Oracle has already begun its internaldiscovery process.