Livermore Set to Be First Witness in HP-Oracle Trial - goodwinengifiricent

Ann Livermore, a member of Hewlett-Packard's directorate and a longtime head of the company's enterprise business organisatio, bequeath atomic number 4 the first witness called when a court in San Jose, California, hears HP's lawsuit against Oracle for finish future growth on the Itanium political platform.

Opening arguments are set to be detected happening Monday, and Livermore is also expected to be called to the stand that day, according to an HP spokesman. The troupe is wasting no time bringing a key musician to bear on the case: Livermore was executive vice president of the early HP Enterprise Business from 2004 until June of net year, when she in brief served as administrator frailty Chief Executive of the HP enterprise services business until August of that twelvemonth. She came to H.P. in 1982.

HP sued Oracle close June, saying the software giant star breached a sign up between the companies when IT said upcoming versions of its software would not be written for Itanium processors. HP developed Itanium along with Intel to power large endeavor UNIX servers and introduced its Integrity server stemma based on IT in 2003. HP is the only major vendor of systems based along the platform.

The companies butted heads aft former HP CEO Mark Hurd, WHO had been discharged in Revered 2010, became co-president of Oracle just a month later on the firing. HP sued Hurd over the move, charging him with breach of abridge and violating confidentiality.

To resolve the dispute complete Hurd, Horsepower and Oracle hammered out an arrangement to stay on every bit partners, and HP dropped the Hurd lawsuit. But soon afterward, Oracle said it would stop developing new versions of its software to run along Itanium. Horsepower sued Oracle in June 2011. Oracle countersued, saying it knew Itanium was headed for cancellation and that HP had misrepresented the platform's condition.

The suit is beingness heard in Santa Clara County Superior Motor inn, in San Jose. In the first part of the trial, Judge James Kleinberg leave rule along whether the thus-called Hurd Agreement between the companies is an enforceable abbreviate and what its footing are. If he finds the undertake validated, the trial run wish move on to a next phase, in which a jury will decide whether Oracle breached the contract, positive determine damages and decide on other issues.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, repositing and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's electronic mail come up to is stephen_lawson@idg.com