Unsealed court documents from the Oracle vs HP legal dispute (centering around Oracle not supporting HP server processors) reveal how HP was paying Intel to keep on producing Itanium chips.
According the documents, agreed to start paying Intel $400 million dollars (spread over the 2009-2014 period) in 2008 to continue producing Itanium processors, a product line Intel was planning to get rid off.
Following the deal, the 2 companies signed another $250M agreement in 2010 to keep Itanium going until 2017.
Oracle proceeded to accuse HP of fraud-- since HP did not reveal its monetary exchanges with Intel. But as The Wall Street Journal reports, the courts did not agree with Oracle, instead deciding to allow with the publishing of unredacted versions of some court documents.
Itanium is an Intel-HP joint-development meant as high-end 64-bit server superchip series-- one most enterprise customers choose not to use, since X86-based Xeon processors tend to be good enough.
Go HP's Payments to Intel for Chip Detailed in Oracle Suit (WSJ.com, registration required)
