HP loses a round to Oracle in French antitrust agency decision regarding Itanium

French antitrust regulator, Autorite de la Concurrence, rejected HP's request that Oracle be forced to adjust pricing on database software that uses Itanium systems. It will continue investigating antitrust claims, however, about Oracle's withdrawal of support for the Itanium platform. HP claims that Oracle attempted to bolster its SPARC business by pulling away from Itanium, despite Intel claiming it will continue Itanium development for a decade. Oracle claims that HP and Intel both know that Intel will soon end development of Itanium. They further claim that HP is keeping this knowledge from their customers. Oracle's decision has negatively impacted HP's server business, as their revenues dropped 9 percent for the Itanium-based Integrity and NonStop systems in HP's Business Critical Systems unit.