The Oracle-SAP soap opera-like court trials and publicity stunts are just getting more and more attention as the drama continues. The recent episode in the epic battle of the two software and information technology giants was witnessed as Oracle’s Chief Executive Larry Ellison said that the worth of intellectual property that SAP stole from them via TomorrowNow is a whopping $4 billion.
When it was his time to answer questions from the high-profiled litigator David Boies representing Oracle, Ellison noted, as cited in the Wall Street Journal: “If they could get that software for nothing, we’d have a hard time paying 100,000 employees.” He also added that with SAP’s access to all intellectual property of Oracle, the former could make very plausible offers to all of their existing clientele.
This copyright infringement trial commenced before the federal court after Oracle filed a lawsuit against competitor SAP for alleged illegal downloads by SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow in 2005. SAP never contested that allegation. What SAP is contesting is the amount that Oracle is demanding from them. Bill Wohl, spokesperson of the German-based company discounted the testimony of Oracle’s CEO. He also mentioned that the 358 customers of TomorrowNow is just a minute portion and estimated to be at 20% to 30% that Ellison and Oracle could lose. Thus, SAP placed a figure of just $40 million—total of what they owe Oracle.
Senior Analyst and founder of Wikibon.org weighs in, saying “Larry Ellison is a competitor’s worst nightmare. He’ll scoop up some serious competition like Peoplesoft, Siebel, Hyperion and BEA; he’ll shock the industry with an acquisition like Sun that totally changes the game; he’ll hire a guy like Mark Hurd that you just fired, he’ll wage a war in the media and he’ll sue your pants off. What’s next – raising prices in a recession – oh right…he’s already done that too.”
In a separate infringement case, Oracle has quoted and demanded $2 billion monetary compensation from SAP. If you think this is insane, then what do you call the $4 billion asking price? Wherever this saga takes the public, competition will just get stiffer as modern world demands for improvement and upgrades.
The latest update in this story leads directly back to HP, as Oracle takes on new tactics to reach new CEO Leo Apotheker, through its court dealing with SAP.
[Editor's Note: Image credit Reuters. -mrh]
[Update: Post updated to reflect corrections to inaccurately worded sentence (that is, Oracle is suing SAP, and changed a sentence to reflect that TomorrowNow is a subsidiary of SAP). Updates thanks to SAP Media Relations Director James Dever. -mrh]
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