Anyone responsible for making data center IT investments must be watching the escalating row between Oracle and HP with intense interest. 

While the data center industry rightly puts much emphasis on the long term nature of facilities infrastructure investments which stretch over a decade and more, it should not be forgotten that on the enterprise IT side, long term investments are also being made and vendors rely companies being tied into their vision. When looking at strategic IT investments what every CIO ( and CFO) wants to know about is the product roadmap. As technology converges, this has never been more important.

The extraordinary events of summer 2010 which saw the exit of Mark Hurd as CEO of HP are rumbling on and as things get legal the latest moves must be raising questions among many budget holders about the roadmap for Oracle database and applications on HP hardware. The road ahead, which yesterday seemed clear and direct, now looks vague and uncertain. 



Mr Ellison: Sabre rattling in defence of his friend

At the top of major corporations it is all about relationships and as loyal as he is to his friend, would Oracle CEO Larry Ellison threaten one of his biggest partners - HP represents a major route to market for Oracle products - without having a back up plan? 

It seems implausible that Mr Ellison would show disregard for his own shareholders by splitting with a strategic partner without having a viable alternative. That leads to the question, who would make a viable strategic partner? In the server world there are only IBM, Dell and Fujitsu operating at scale. But Cisco last year moved its tanks onto the server market lawn, ripping up a long term alliance with HP in the process.

One possibility is that there are already Oracle missions despatched to Cisco