After Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems announced significant deals with Oracle in recent months, <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6062220.html?tag=zdnn.alert">IBM is striking back</A> with rebates of as much as $300,000 for software from the database giant. HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd announced broader software support and favorable pricing from Oracle in March--and got Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to endorse its Itanium servers with the words, "There is no more important platform for Oracle than HP and Itanium."