Oracle demands retrial in SAP slurp spat Oracle has filed for a retrial in its SAP spat over illegal file downloading, moaning that the reduced damages awarded just aren't enough. Oracle originally won a whopping $1.3bn in damages in its suit against SAP over the German enterprise software biz's subsidiary TomorrowNow illegally slurping Oracle software and support …
So a multi-billion multinational looses an IP theft case and the judge lowers the penalty by 5 folds to a rather inconsequencial (for SAP) $272m, for having stolen IP that was actually very valuable for both compagnies.
A single mom looses a case for downloading 22 songs she probably didn't give that much shit about and still as to pony up a completly impossible amount for her to pay (wasn,t it close to what SAP now as to pay?)
Anyone else see this as a completly un-fair state of affairs?
Just how much money was pissed away on this trial anyway?
What is the point of having a jury, if after they render a verdict...the judge can say ..."Sorry folks...just don't think what you decided was correct. I'm making my own decision on this...and the days/weeks/months you have been sitting here listening to testimony has been a complete waste...not only of taxpayers money...but YOUR time as well. Have a nice day."
So because this judge has taken it upon him self to totally dismiss the findings of the jury...the trial will most likely start all over again. What a bunch of BS.
Except that the judge hasn't ignored the jury's findings (that SAP acted illegally). All he's done is say that the jury are a wrong in the amount of damages they awarded. If it came down to having a judge decide a sentence/damages or a jury, I'd go fo the judge every time - they tend to be more level headed, less swayed by the BS that lawyers come out with, and actually have a reasonable understanding of the law.
it is very odd that the judge decided on an amount even lower than what SAP offered. While I concur that the Billions settlement awarded by the jury is absurd, I would expect the award to be in the $600-$800 million range as a premium for not coming to an out of court settlement. But then I haven't read the trial notes either.
Well SAP happens to be Oracles biggest VAR when it comes to database licenses, Piss then off too much and SAP with do an oracle and decide that it will no longer support oracle databases and priovide Sybase (or MaxDB) free of charge with some free consultancy thrown in to help migrate.
Alot of the SAP customer base on oracle (especially the old HP-UX customers) are already considering moving to DB2 or SQLserver as there is a distinct nervosness regarding oracle. Again oracles statement regarding VMware support is also steering customer away from Oracle.
Agree, Oracle is really making it impossible for SAP. I don't think Oracle cares though. SAP has been, and pretty successfully, migrating their big shops to IBM DB2 for the last several years. SAP co-designed the latest version of DB2 for SAP with IBM. It mops the floor with Oracle DB on the SAP compression and integration fronts. Oracle knows SAP wants them out of their shops and agreeing to settle this lawsuit isn't going to change the fact that Oracle is their largest ERP competitor.
SAP would have a difficult time telling their customers to migrate to Sybase ASE with a straight face, as Sybase begged them for 15 years to certify ASE for SAP and SAP said no. MaxDB is probably more in the MS SQL camp (smaller shops), which Oracle doesn't really care about.
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