Itanium-based HP Integrity users join forces to influence Oracle

Oracle's sensational decision to halt the development of Itanium’s own processor architecture software has caused a negative reaction from HP Integrity users around the world. At the same time, the case did not stop with protest statements - activists form a community that can work together to influence many important aspects of the life of companies in the market.

The movement is headed by the largest independent HP Connect community, with about 52 thousand members. These are companies that have invested billions of dollars in Integrity systems that support Oracle applications under the HP-UX operating system. The termination of the release of new versions will cost companies not only serious amounts of lost profits, but also reduce their competitive advantages, not to mention the slowdown in the rate of innovation, which is something that one cannot afford in the modern market. The community has set itself the goal of spreading the most widespread information about what is happening and eventually encouraging Oracle to change its position on this issue.

The main question that the members of the community ask Oracle, sounds like this: “what happened to the principle of putting the needs of customers above the needs of the company”? To collect applications, a special committee has been created, where it is proposed to send a description of the negative consequences of canceling further software development for specific companies.
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The Gabriel consulting group conducted a survey of about 450 major customers to find out how they relate to the latest Oracle actions . As a result, 48% of respondents disagree with the head of Oracle Otellini, which has already been refuted by Oracle, arguing that Intel is not going to release new Itanium. Half of the respondents are confident that Intel will fulfill its plans and release at least two more Itanium generations (Poulson and Kittson). Oracle’s reassurances that the company is only protecting the interests of customers that HP and Intel allegedly cheat on are few customers have taken on trust. Nearly half of them believe that Larry Ellison’s latest actions are a desire to reduce the number of server platforms for which Oracle is developing its software, and 66% also believe that, as a result, Oracle will use this conflict as an excuse to increase the cost of licensing and support its software. on the HP Integrity platform (last fall, Oracle had already changed the licensing conditions for its software for Unix systems in favor of Sparc servers). 77% of respondents agree that Oracle wants to eliminate a competitor of its Sparc servers (Gabriel recalls that in the 1990s several manufacturers of Unix servers left the market because Oracle had stopped or reduced to a minimum the support of their platforms, but today the situation has changed a lot and customers have more spare options). Finally, almost 80% of respondents believe that Oracle is trying to save sales of its Sparks at the expense of its strong positions in the software market and artificially creates problems for customers using its software on other platforms.

For the mass user of IT in Russia, and, probably, all over the world, the described activity is of no particular importance, however, in our opinion, the principle itself is important here. The interests of clients should always be the main motivating factor for making internal corporate decisions. The sudden termination of the release of updates, the transition to another platform, the introduction of paid features or paid support to replace free - such solutions can not be considered only in terms of short-term benefits. After all, in the end, the main thing that any company has is its customers, and to deceive their expectations is to dig your own grave with your own hands. But you cannot look at the situation only from the point of view of companies and fair trade. In Russia, it is extremely important to understand the significance of the wide dissemination of information and the association of citizens to defend their interests. Notice that this is not about politics, although this is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about public associations and movements. Skills and desires to independently defend their interests in a dispute with corporations to Russian consumers are still not enough, but they must emerge if we plan to build a real civil society in our country, and not described in the program documents of political parties.