Oracle's Catz was 'shocked' by HP suit against Hurd

IDG News Service - Oracle refused to commit to continued porting of its software to Hewlett-Packard's Itanium platform as part of the companies' settlement over Oracle's hiring of Mark Hurd, Oracle co-President Safra Catz told a judge on Tuesday.

HP enterprise business head Ann Livermore at one point proposed several business commitments to be included in the settlement agreement when she and Catz spoke in the wake of Hurd's hiring in September 2010, Catz said. Among those was Oracle agreeing to continue porting its software to Itanium, a chip platform that is predominantly used by HP.

"I told her this was totally out of place in this agreement ... and that we were not going to do that, period," Catz told Judge James Kleinberg of the Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, California.

Just days after HP fired Hurd as its CEO, Oracle hired him as co-president. HP promptly sued Hurd to stop him from misusing confidential information.

"I was shocked, actually. I was really, really surprised" when HP filed the suit, Catz said on Tuesday. She saw the filing as a suit against Oracle as well as Hurd.

Almost as soon as the suit was filed, the companies were trying to patch up the rift in their relationship, which represents billions of dollars in revenue and tens of thousands of joint customers. Adding to the urgency, Catz said, was the fact that HP had purchased a keynote address at the upcoming 2010 Oracle OpenWorld conference, to be delivered by Livermore with an introduction by Catz.

By September 20, less than a week before OpenWorld, they had a deal and a press release saying their partnership was sound. But the following March, when Oracle announced it would stop porting its software to Itanium, HP sued again.

A key piece of HP's case is a cover email to one draft of the proposed agreement, written by Oracle general counsel Dorian Daley. In it, Daley said Catz and Livermore had discussed the companies continuing to work together as before Hurd's hiring "with Oracle porting products to HP's platforms and HP supporting the ported products and the parties engaging in joint marketing opportunities."

On Tuesday, Robert Frank, an attorney for HP, grilled Catz over whether that email misrepresented the conversation she had had with Livermore. Catz said Daley had added the reference to continued porting and joint marketing, which was broken out with dashes.

"In general, she represented the conversation," Catz said. "She added things in the dashes. It is what it is."

Catz's account matched Daley's own testimony about the email on Monday. She referred to the porting and marketing as examples of the kinds of things HP and Oracle had done in the past.