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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."
$1.3 billion eh? By RIAA accounting standards that sounds to me like they may have copied 7, or maybe even 8 songs! Burn!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
If SAP doesn't like it then they can cease to doing business in America and with American companies.
Please Santa, I've been a good boy and its not like I have ever asked you for much before.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
for all I know SAP could totally be in the right.
But I still love seeing them in pain.. after all the pain they've caused everyone else.
A legal battle between SAP and Oracle sounds like a (forgive me, Godwin) war between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union.
Whoever loses, they deserved it, and I hope no one wins.
It really bugs me that there seem to be these stories, mostly about copyright-related lawsuits, where the OP assumes that everyone on Slashdot knows what the lawsuit was about. Well, I don't know what Oracle sued SAP for, and if I did I forgot. Who can keep these acronyms and company names straight anyway? If it were just once I wouldn't be bothered to RTFA but I shouldn't have to RTFA just to understand the summary of a story that normally I wouldn't care that much about. These things seem to come up once every couple of days though.
I sometimes ask revealing, often ignorant-seeming questions. Maybe they're harder to answer than you think.
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.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is a raft of crap written by someone who wants things their own way 100% of the time. I seem to remember the EU fining American companies several billion dollars.
Should American's complain that all those EU fines were just EU jingoism?
To tell the truth I don't see any jingoism going on at all, in either case, as this doesn't fit the description of jingoism. Jingoism is feverish excitement for a nation, not a company, unless you're trying to say that SAP == Germany, and that Oracle == US. I can't see how that is even close to being logical thinking, nor have I ever met anyone dumb enough to think that way. In fact, I don't know of anyone who is familiar with how Oracle and SAP do business who really likes either one of them. People may invest in either company in hopes of getting a return on their investment, but actually like either company? That's a horse of another color.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville