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SAP To Plead Guilty For Downloading Oracle Software
itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will remember that on Sept. 1, a federal judge overturned a $1.3 billion judgment and approved SAP's request that Oracle accept a lower award of $272 million. Now, according to court documents filed this week, former SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow will plead guilty to criminal charges of copyright infringement for downloading software from Oracle's servers. Sentencing will take place at a hearing on Sept. 14."
First, it wasn't "SAP" but a support company SAP bought, then discovered was doing this after the deal was done. Oracle waited to sue SAP and not the tiny little company SAP bought.
The company was using it's one customer support connection to Oracle's website to support OTHER ORACLE CUSTOMERS that needed security patches locked behind a paywall.
Unfortunately, the suit doesn't address the real problem.. Of Oracle structuring "support" rates as their own little piggy bank... How many companies have "maintenance" as X% of "current market price" ... Then jack that price to 200% and grant "discounts" to anybody shopping for NEW licenses.
My own company ran into this with some other companies software that wanted more for "hardware transfer" and " maintenance" in one year than we paid for the initial license. The yearly "20%" is more like 50% of what we initially paid...
Should alert the purchasing managers that they need to limit "yearly increase" to 5% or an audit of their "sold" pricing for the year. Gotta be clever! The FUN companies are ones that want you to may maintenance AND separately for UPGRADES.