Oracle Corp, set to go to trial today against SAP AG, wants at least $2.3 billion in damages for what its German rival acknowledges were a now-defunct unit’s “inappropriate” downloads of Oracle materials.
The federal court trial between the two largest makers of software for managing business tasks such as payroll and accounting may feature testimony by former SAP Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Apotheker, who Oracle says oversaw the TomorrowNow unit’s conduct, begins his new job today as CEO of Oracle rival Hewlett-Packard Co.
SAP, the world’s biggest maker of business-management software, says its executives were unaware of the downloading at its TomorrowNow software maintenance unit, which was closed in 2008. Oracle’s damage estimates are “grossly exaggerated” and the lawsuit is aimed at harassing competitors, SAP’s lawyers said in court filings in Oakland, California.
“The whole goal is here is humiliation,” said Joshua Greenbaum, a software industry analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting. In saying it might call Apotheker as a witness, Oracle “has now extended that to Hewlett-Packard,” Greenbaum said.
TomorrowNow, acquired by SAP in 2005 for $10 million, offered lower-cost software maintenance and support to customers using products by companies that Redwood City, California-based Oracle had acquired, including PeopleSoft Inc. and JD Edwards & Co.
Unlicensed copies
Oracle’s attorneys said in court filings that TomorrowNow illegally copied software code needed to support customers without buying licenses to access it. TomorrowNow made thousands of duplicates of copyrighted software obtained by illegally accessing electronic materials from Oracle’s customer-support websites, the lawyers said.
Apotheker went to Hewlett-Packard after Mark Hurd resigned as CEO amid a scandal over a personal relationship with a company contractor. Ellison, 66, hired Hurd, saying in a letter to the New York Times that Hewlett-Packard’s board had made “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” Apotheker, 57, didn’t become SAP’s sole chief executive until after TomorrowNow was shut down.
