Oracle's (NASDAQ: ORCL) announcement last week that it would stop developing software for systems using the 64-bit Itanium processor set off a firestorm of reaction from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), which co-developed the chip. Meanwhile, the announcement left Oracle customers wondering whether they should reconsider their planned infrastructure upgrades.

The volley of official statements out of Oracle, Intel and HP generated a conflicting set of impressions regarding the future of the Itanium technology. To make some sense of the thinly veiled mutual insults flying over the wires, ZDNet's Larry Dignan wrote his own translation. When Oracle said that Itanium was nearing the end of its life, what it meant is that the chip is targeted at Unix, and the Unix market isn't so hot at the moment. Plus, Oracle is trying to push Solaris, its "own flavor" of Unix, on its own processors, Dignan writes.

HP reacted by charging that "this latest Oracle action of disinformation is clearly an attempt to force customers into purchasing Sun servers in a desperate move to slow their declining market share." What it really was saying is that nobody should fall for Oracle's effort to market its complete stack, Dignan writes.

Unfortunately, Oracle customers using Itanium chips could be nicked by the passing slings and arrows. Oracle leads the market for database-plus-ERP software, and it is that kind of software pairing that drives hardware purchases, notes Paul McDougall at InformationWeek. By dropping Itanium, Oracle is trying to leverage is place in suite pairing to boost sales of Sun hardware. "[F]or the top line, zero-latency stuff for banks, big manufacturers, research institutions and other demanding environments, it's going to be Oracle-on-Oracle," he writes.

Forcing customers to buy Sun gear--which Oracle bought last year for $7.4 billion--so that they can continue using Oracle software may leave more than a few feeling left out in the cold.  

"The bottom line is that Oracle is heading toward becoming a propriety systems vendor, confident that CIOs will cast aside their aversion to single-suppler lock-in in order to continue running Oracle's most advanced software stack," McDougall writes. "It's a risky bet--one that could end up costing Oracle billions in future revenues from license sales and support."

For more:
- see Larry Dignan's post at ZDNet
- see Paul McDougall's post at InformationWeek

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