SAP admits wrongdoing in Oracle downloads case
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Software maker SAP admitted a  subsidiary had carried out &quot;inappropriate downloads&quot; of  documents belonging to archrival Oracle but said on Tuesday SAP  itself had not had access to that material.
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(InfoWorld) - SAP admitted on Tuesday that its TomorrowNow services subsidiary made some "inappropriate downloads" from an Oracle Web site but contended that SAP personnel did not access the material. SAP admitted the downloads in today's response to a March 22 lawsuit by Oracle that alleged TomorrowNow staff hacked into an Oracle support Web site and downloaded vast amounts of content, which was used to offer Oracle customers cut-rate support services. In an about-face from his previous position, SAP CEO Henning Kagermann said in a statement that his company is open to a possible settlement with Oracle, which has charged SAP with "corporate theft on a grand scale." Rodney Masney, global director of IT infrastructure services at Owens-Illinois, a Toledo, Ohio-based maker of packaging materials and an SAP shop, said he doesn't expect that the lawsuit will damage SAP's business. "It's important for customers of SAP to know they are dealing with a highly ethical organization," he said. "Ultimately, I believe this will blow over." Masney, also president of the Americas' SAP User Group, said that Kagermann offered assurances during a telephone conversation today that a thorough investigation would continue and that "appropriate action" would be taken against employees involved in any theft of data. In addition, Masney said that Kagermann said that there is "an appropriate firewall [between TomorrowNow and SAP] and no information fell into the hands of SAP employees. There were perhaps some procedures not followed and that significantly increased the amount of data downloaded [by TomorrowNow employees]." In its response, SAP also said that it has appointed COO Mark White executive chairman of TomorrowNow, and pledged to enforce both existing procedures, create new policies, and implement special training programs for employees. Masney described White as a "very disciplined" executive. Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst at Nucleus Research in Wellesley, Mass., criticized SAP officials for a lack of oversight. "The apology and response is too little too late," she said. "SAP customers should be concerned, in general, about their welfare, given SAP management's apparent lack of oversight of its employees and lack of regard for intellectual property." David Mitchell, an analyst at London-based Ovum, said SAP must work hard to avoid damaging its reputation. "It is still likely that the case will continue through the legal process and that it may still have many months to run," he stated in a research note. "Irrespective of the legal conclusion to the case, a significant part of the impact for both Oracle and SAP will be related to how each manages the public relations impact." Oracle released an e-mail statement Tuesday, noting that "Kagermann has now admitted to the repeated and illegal downloading of Oracle's intellectual property. Oracle filed suit to discover the magnitude of the illegal downloads and fully understand how SAP used Oracle's intellectual property in its business. To the extent requested, Oracle will cooperate with the Department of Justice investigation of SAP announced by the company in its press release." (Dan Nystedt and China Martens of the IDG News Service contributed to this story.)
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An emergency motion was filed Friday the 13th of August in US District Court of Eastern Michigan, Compuware said that IBM failed to provide essential evidence, which includes several pieces of disputed software source code, until after the case&#39;s ...
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The world&#39;s largest computer software manufacturer filed suit Tuesday in US District Court against a local software retailer it claims is selling and distributing counterfeit software labels.
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SAP admitted on Tuesday its  TomorrowNow unit had carried out some &quot;inappropriate downloads&quot;  of documents belonging to Oracle but said SAP had not had  access to that material.
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For the past 18 months, SAP has been knocking on the doors of PeopleSoft customers, extending maintenance and licensing incentives to lure them over. Now that Oracle has acquired PeopleSoft, SAP is pulling out a fresh weapon from its arsenal in the battle to win customers -- new technology.
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update Infineon Technologies will plead guilty to taking part in an international DRAM price-fixing conspiracy, which affected such companies as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, the US Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
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SAP AG , the world's largest maker of business-management software, said it made "inappropriate" downloads of Oracle Corp. documents, responding to a lawsuit that claims the German company stole files from the competitor.
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Oracle's  search for a smoking gun to prove the truth of its allegations that rival SAP  stole its software is likely to be long and arduous, making an out-of-court settlement attractive for both parties.
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Redwood Shores-based software giant Oracle Corp. said in court that PeopleSoft Inc. CEO Craig Conway lied about the effects of Oracle&#39;s $7.
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Software maker SAP admitted a  subsidiary had carried out "inappropriate downloads" of  documents belonging to archrival Oracle but said on Tuesday SAP  itself had not had access to that material.
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When software projects go bad, the results can be disastrous. Every few months, a new horror story pops into the headlines -- like Hewlett-Packard Co.'s recent, flawed SAP deployment. The company had done dozens of smooth ERP (enterprise resource planning) migration projects, but when its latest ran into problems, the cascading disruptions contributed to HP missing its third-quarter financial projections.
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Downloads of Oracle files by SAP subsidiary "unacceptable," CEO Kagerman declares. Justice Department also investigating.
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A U.S. judge has sent Oracle's lawsuit against SAP and its TomorrowNow subsidiary to mediation.
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Nick of time Security researchers have discovered a slew of vulnerabilities in enterprise software packages from SAP that create a means for hackers inject malware onto or crash vulnerable systems.â¦
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A consultant offered advice Tuesday regarding how Oracle customers can get the best deal and protect themselves while licensing software from the enterprise software giant.Oracle&#39;s licensing practices have been maligned as overly confusing and unfair. But Eliot Arlo Colon, president of Miro Consulting, an independent firm in Fords, N.J., didn&#39;t get into specifics about particular policies, instead organizing a webinar around four categories: compliance, discounts, ongoing annual support costs, and terms and conditions.&quot;When I look at e-mail subject lines, these are the things we get hit with,&quot; Colon said.&quot;Compliance is the foundation. Without it, nothing else matters,&quot; he said, adding that it is &quot;not a gray area. Either you&#39;re compliant or you&#39;re not. ... If you consider areas [of use] gray, or your vendor considers areas gray, you should be concerned.&quot;Companies should self-audit their licenses twice a year, and it should be a &quot;thorough review,&quot; not a couple of mass e-mails, he said: &quot;It&#39;s definitely more of a bear than most people would anticipate.&quot;A third party should review the audit, and the company must possess a &quot;stated and defendable&quot; position on gray areas, he added. It is also wise to get assumptions confirmed in writing: &quot;If it&#39;s not stated in your agreement that you have that right, chances are you do not have that right,&quot; he said.Oracle vigorously defends its intellectual property, according to Colon. &quot;You always have to assume an audit is only 30 days away,&quot; he said. &quot;We&#39;ve worked with companies that say &#39;We&#39;re a strategic partner, we&#39;re in the Oracle top 50,&#39; and then they&#39;re audited.&quot;Colon offered a range of advice concerning license cost. While Oracle and other vendors tend to offer better deals at certain times of the year, customers shouldn&#39;t be easily tempted by a low price, he said: &quot;Waiting until a vendor&#39;s end-of-year, end-of-quarter may not be in your best interest if it&#39;s changing your business process. ... Everyone wants to get a good deal, but discount isn&#39;t the whole game. It&#39;s total cost of ownership.&quot;To that end, organizations should take a close look at their existing annual support costs, he said: &quot;You may find that your support is a lot better than you thought, or you might find products that you&#39;re supporting and not using. ... or that Oracle has acquired half the software you&#39;ve got and now it can be supported under one envelope.&quot;In fact, enterprises should review their annual support spending at least twice per year, Colon argued.IT shops should also seek to rework any complex and ambiguous language in license contracts; determine how globalization and consolidation has altered their company&#39;s licensing needs; mull the ramifications of licensing among mobile workers; and ensure they have collected all proofs of purchases for storage in an asset management repository, Colon said. His company advises enterprise-software customers of companies, including Oracle and Microsoft.When renewal time comes, companies should weigh whether it makes more sense to renew the existing pact or formulate a new one, according to Colon. &quot;Businesses are very dynamic. If you have an agreement signed four years ago, chances are it doesn&#39;t work for you today,&quot; he said.Firms must also ensure they and Oracle are working from the same set of terms and conditions, Colon warned: &quot;You want to make sure you&#39;re protected -- believe me, Oracle is going to make sure they&#39;re protected.&quot;
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Oracle's lawsuit against rival SAP will move finally to trial on February 9, 2009 -- almost two years after the suit was initially filed, SAP said Tuesday.