Enterprise software company Oracle closed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems last year and is using Sun hardware to tie customers into a more integrated stack. Enterprise hardware company Hewlett Packard is also moving toward a more integrated strategy, aspects of which can be seen in CEO Leo Apotheker’s recent cloud pronouncements. All of this convergence makes an awful lot of sense, and despite very real concerns about future lock-in may often deliver short and medium-term benefit to customers. However, “convergence” also means that the companies HP, Oracle and others previously collaborated with are today far more likely to be competitors, and that’s where things have a tendency to get nasty. Last week’s eruption around Intel‘s Itanium chip is a perfect example. Intel and HP developed it, and HP sells most of the servers that include it. Oracle used to support it, but has decided to drop support in favor of hardware it acquired with Sun. Names are being called, accusations are being hurled, doubts are being planted in the minds of system buyers, and everyone is blaming everyone else. Underneath the confusion, this is a business decision. Oracle clearly believes that it can persuade enough customers to deploy Oracle hardware and software to maintain or grow current revenue. Any mud that sticks to the competition down the road in Palo Alto is a bonus. It’s a risky gambit, though, and may still backfire.