(2 votes, average: 10 out of 10)
Loading ...SAP: We’re not thieves. We just can’t read contracts
I doubt many SAP customers (or even Oracle customers, for that matter), are too concerned about the lawsuit between the two firms, unless it mean that one of the two companies managed to get some kind of injunction against the other’s technology. Still, you can learn a lot about how these vendors operate in the way they respond to legal action, and the documents from SAP are a case in point.
If you haven’t been paying attention, Oracle claims that SAP’s support arm, TomorrowNow, illegally downloaded information about its customers and its products. Technically, it’s allowed to get software updates and other information, but only if they have the right support agreements. Oracle’s suit alleges that SAP abused this privlege. In a court filing it made today, SAP says Oracle is making a mountain out of a molehill.
“This case, in short, is about whether TomorrowNow exceeded its customers’ rights in downloading certain materials. That is not a matter of “corporate theft on a grand scale”, as Oracle says in its complaint, but a matter of contract interpretation.”
Okay, maybe, but that doesn’t make it right. SAP is now pushing for a settlement (which is weird, because that’s precisely what SAP’s CEO said he would not do), but the real job of the court may be to determine whether these kind of agreements should be revised with some sort of new standard rules. That’s where things could get a lot more interesting — and that’s when IT managers, among others, will have to start paying a lot more attention to this case.
