Ellison claims Oracle faced grave risk from SAP strategy
09 Nov 2010
According to Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, the value of software from his company downloaded illegally by a subsidiary of German rival SAP would amount to $4 billion.
The amount is 100 times that SAP says it should be called upon to pay for the infringement, raising the stakes in a courtroom battle between two software rivals.
Ellison was testifying as a witness for Oracle. Dropping his characteristically dismissive approach towards SAP, he described the rival firm's strategy aimed at outflanking Oracle as ''brilliant.''
In 2008 Oracle sued TomorrowNow, an American subsidiary of Germany-based SAP, for corporate theft, alleging it illegally downloaded masses of Oracle customer service materials and passed those documents to SAP (See: Oracle sues SAP for ''theft'' of corporate information).
The trial, which got off yesterday, comes following SAP's admission that a US subsidiary, TomorrowNow, had without authorisation downloaded documents and software from Oracle's servers.
SAP's acquisition of TomorrowNow was aimed at countering Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft, a deal that saw Oracle forge ahead of SAP in the business applications market.