SAP Ordered To Pay $1.3 Billion To Oracle

bdcny7927 writes with news that a jury decided to award Oracle $1.3 billion in their lawsuit against SAP after deliberating for less than a day. "The verdict ... is the biggest ever for copyright infringement and the largest US jury award of 2010, according to Bloomberg data. The award is about equal to SAP’s forecasted net income for the fourth quarter, excluding some costs, according to the average estimate of analysts... SAP spokesman Bill Wohl said the German software maker will pursue all available options, including post-trial motions and will appeal if necessary."

Comments

Re:Automated download?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically SAP was illegally distributing Oracles software. They were also copying Oracles patches and reworking them so they would work with the pirated oracle software. Think of it as somebody selling bootleg windows and also supplying bootleg patches.

SAP admitted to having done it. It was estimated that if they had been selling legal licenses and service contracts it would have been anywhere between 560 million and 3 billion, so 1.3 billion is a middle ground figure.

This is one fight where Oracle actually isn't being evil and was legitimately getting ripped off.

Re:Automated download?

[hairyfeet]

Well since I can't remember seeing real troll behavior from you I'll assume you are really confused and explain: Support. Just like you can buy Windows 7 in everything from Starter to Ultimate with different features included, with Oracle you get different levels of support and downloads for different tiers. What SAP did was pretend to be Oracle customers and download ALL the features and extras for ALL the levels of support and then proceeded to undercut them on their own product. It would be like you going to Apple stores and setting up your "brand new Hackintosh RAZR1911 Edition" for sale. Needless to say that didn't go over well.

So I really don't see how SAP can bitch. They bought a company whose entire business plan was based on theft, admitted the company was stealing, and now they have to pay the price. You can't just let companies like this off on whatever the cost of the theft was, otherwise I could steal from you and if caught just give back the original while keeping the interest. the judgment has to be nasty to deter others who would do the same thing. But no matter what you think of Oracle they have the right to sell their software anyway they choose, and the company SAP bought stole patches and support that they had no right to and for a profit.