Recently I wrote about the innovation deficit in Germany, and some of the steps SAP was taking to remain competitive with Oracle. Little did I suspect that SAP might resort to drastic measures:
Oracle has sued its larger rival SAP for "corporate theft on a grand scale", saying the company took thousands of documents from Oracle’s website without permission in order to win Oracle’s customers.
The suit claims SAP "has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers."
In a 44-page complaint filed in California, Oracle alleges that SAP "has copied and swept thousands of Oracle software products and other proprietary and confidential materials onto its own servers" as part of a plan to compile "an illegal library of Oracle’s copyrighted software code and other materials.
This case is interesting since it does not involve IP around the core enterprise software offering. Rather, the complaint involves stolen software around customer support and services. The theft may have been the doing of certain overzealous SAP employees at a recently acquired firm in Texas, so it most likely was not sanctioned by SAP management. Even so, it represents a serious lapse of managment controls at the German software giant. But so far it does not look like SAP embedded Oracle IP in its products.
It will be interesting to watch how this plays out. Pass the popcorn!
