Oracle is continuing its war against SAP by suing it for
alleged software copyright theft.
Oracle alleged that SAP “has stolen thousands of proprietary,
copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that
Oracle developed to service its own support customers”.
Oracle also claimed SAP “gained repeated and unauthorised
access, in many cases by use of pre-textual customer log-in
credentials, to Oracle’s proprietary, password-protected customer
support website”.
The alleged theft is said to have happened between September
2006 and January this year. Oracle claimed SAP employees at the SAP
TomorrowNow subsidiary in the US "copied and swept thousands of
Oracle products and other proprietary and confidential materials
into its own servers".
It is believed fake log-ins or credentials “stolen” from high
profile Oracle customers including Honeywell, Merck & Co, and
Bear Sterns, among others, were used.
Oracle claimed the stolen software allowed SAP "to offer cut
rate support services to customers who use Oracle software”, in an
attempt to lure them to SAP's applications.
Oracle said it had investigated large increases in support web
traffic and discovered that searches and downloads had been
instigated from the SAP TomorrowNow site.
Oracle claimed SAP acquired the subsidiary in 2005 solely for
the purpose of gaining Oracle customer records held by the firm.
TomorrowNow offers cut rate support services on Oracle
products.
David Mitchell, an analyst at Ovum, said, “Most legal cases in
software have focused on product-related IP. This case is
different, in that it focuses on the IP around a support and
service offering.
“One group of people that must not be forgotten in this turmoil
is the customers of both SAP and Oracle.
Many of them are now wondering whether they have inadvertently
benefited from this breach.”
He said that from the details that have emerged so far, there
appears to be no accusation that SAP has embedded Oracle IP into
SAP products. On that basis there should be no customer concerns
around them inadvertently breaching IP rights by using SAP
products.
But, he added, “Oracle has no beef with SAP customers, only with
SAP. Oracle could remove customer concerns by declaring that it
would not pursue SAP customers, for any breech of IP that SAP may
or may not have undertaken.”
Earlier this week, Oracle posted impressive third quarter
results, and at the same time claimed that its business software
business was growing far faster than SAP’s.
SAP has not so far responded to the Oracle lawsuit.
Oracle posts buoyant results
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