French antitrust authority to continue Oracle probe after HP complaint

The country's antitrust authority said Tuesday it will continue to probe whether Oracle Corp. improperly leveraged its strength in software to squeeze Hewlett-Packard Co. out of certain parts of the hardware market, but said no immediate action will be taken against Oracle.

In a statement, the Autorite de la Concurrence said that Hewlett-Packard and its French unit, Hewlett-Packard France, filed a complaint accusing rival Oracle and its French unit, Oracle France, of using its position on the database management system market to squeeze its competitors out of the market for top-of-the-range company computer servers.

According to the French competition authority, Oracle said in March 2011 that the new version of its database management system for companies, to be released in 2012, won't be compatible with one of the processors used by Hewlett-Packard for its company servers.

Hewlett-Packard alleges that this will create an unfair disadvantage, as companies may choose to change their servers rather than change their software.
Hewlett-Packard also complained that Oracle is using discriminatory pricing on its database management software.

Hewlett-Packard's complaint comes after Oracle moved into the computer hardware market following the acquisition of server maker Sun Microsystems in January 2010.

In a statement Tuesday, Oracle said that the French regulator's decision was "not surprising", adding that "the full story will become public in April when Hewlett-Packard's litigation in California proceeds to trial." Hewlett-Packard declined to comment on the matter.