On the day following Oracle's announcement that it would discontinue developing software on Intel's Itanium processor because it was "nearing the end of its life", Intel released a statement saying it would continue pursuing a long-term Itanium roadmap.

Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said the company's work on Itanium processors and platforms continued with multiple generations of chips in development and on schedule. "We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture."

The next generation of Itanium chips will be the 32nm 8-core Poulson, which the company says will double performance of the existing Tukwila architecture. Another Itanium product currently in development that will succeed Poulson is Kittson. Intel said it was officially committed to the Kittson roadmap.

Oracle and Intel representatives did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

In a statement released on 22 March (the statement that produced the response from Intel) Oracle said Intel management had "made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life."

Oracle's decision follows decisions to discontinue development for Itanium by both Microsoft and RedHat. According to PCWorld, RedHat stopped development for the processors in 2009 and RedHat did the same in 2010.

Oracle also pointed out that HP CEO Leo Apotheker's recent presentation on the hardware vendor's business strategy did not include a mention of Itanium.

HP was Intel's initial partner during development of first-generation Itanium processors. It has had a strong high-end server line designed around the architecture.

HP's executive VP Dave Donatelli told the Wall Street Journal that HP was not happy about Oracle's move. "We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity," he said.

Oracle said it would continue providing support for customers with existing versions of Oracle software running on Itanium.