Oracle Deposition Crushes SAP in Court
If you think $2 billion monetary compensation is insanely outrageous for SAP’s damages to Oracle, then you should hear what former Oracle president Charles Philips has to say.
Philips said Thursday as he testifies in an Oakland courtroom that as a former manager of marketing and large-customer relations at Oracle, the company would have charged billions of dollars, perhaps around “$3 billion or $4 billion and you’d want it up front,” for a license to use the IP that SAP’s TomorrowNow illegally downloaded, while SAP insists that the damage is only worth $40 million.
As AllThingsD points out, Oracle is going after more than one SAP executive. Shai Agassi, a former SAP executive board member, testified that SAP acquired TomorrowNow to elude maintenance fees it has to pay to Oracle and that the company was well aware of possibility of a lawsuit. But a comment from him later suggested that Oracle’s motive behind a lawsuit could’ve been anything.
It highlights the drama taking place behind the cloud wars right now, especially with legal rails being armed for a fierce fallout. Others experiencing the growing pains are EMC and Dell, HP and Oracle, and many, many others. This current move to discredit HP’s top man is a dangerous game, and will eventually affect the industry as a whole.
What’s still missing from this saga is SAP’s side of the story, though the company seems to be getting along in other areas of business. A partnership with NEC is furthering the cloud company’s international inroads, and its executive restructuring is being solidified after losing Leo to HP.
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