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SAP Admits to 'Inappropriate' Downloading of Oracle Code

Posted by Zonk on from the think-then-do-think-then-do dept.

netbuzz writes "SAP's CEO Henning Kagermann uses the undoubtedly lawyered term 'inappropriate download' to describe the company's questionable actions. Henning blames a rogue business unit, but there can be no mistaking the fact that Oracle caught SAP with its hand in the IP jar on this one. The legal proceedings that will follow should prove interesting. 'The admission hurts SAP's reputation in the battle with Larry Ellison's Oracle in the $56 billion market for software that manages tasks such as payroll. The rivalry between SAP and Oracle escalated when Oracle filed its March 22 lawsuit claiming SAP workers hacked into a Web site and stole software codes on a grand scale.'"

3 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Most inappropriate use of the word "inappropriate" by Trails · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Inappropriate? Inappropriate is when my boss caught me photoshopping my buddy's head onto a screen cap of the Pamela and Tommy video (It was for his bachelor party, I swear it).

    This is illegal and perhaps fradulent (ie they claimed they were customers seeking service). But what gets me the most about this is how blisteringly stupid it is. "There's no way they could know it's us! Well, there's no way, apart from the webserver logs, that they could know it's us!".

    From the article:

    Oracle said TomorrowNet used identities of Oracle customers and phony users to gain access to its systems. Customers for whom SAP allegedly conducted illegal downloads include Merck & Co. and Bear Stearns & Co., according to the March 22 lawsuit.
    So not only are they picking a legal fight with Oracle, pissing of the DOJ, and destroying their reputation, but they've basically shown they're not above pretending to be their customers. I bet the SAP CEO is turfed before the end of the next quarter.
  2. Re:Can I get a consensus opinion? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But it is illegal- we'll have to see whether SAP shields its hacker team behind the veil of corporate responsibility or exposes them to be criminally prosecuted individually.

  3. Re:Not Source Code by OG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And, according to one news article I saw, republished one of the support documents with their own logo, passing it off as their own work.