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Oracle v. SAP Legal Fight Gets Messier, Raises Tough Questions About Third-Party Maintenance

Details from new court documents show potential legal quagmires for both third-party maintenance and support providers and their customers. Will the case rock the whole third-party maintenance business? No, say TomorrowNow's rivals.

By Thomas Wailgum

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David Rowe, Rimini Street's vice president of global marketing, points out via e-mail that Oracle's complaint noted "that they don't have a legal problem with third-party support—just some of the alleged processes and procedures that TomorrowNow was using." (To read an interview with the Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin, see "The Man Behind 'Half Off' Third-Party Software Maintenance.")

In fact, Rowe says that Oracle has acknowledged that "third parties can get software and updates for clients," he says. "However, they are alleging that TomorrowNow went out of bounds and took more than the client was entitled to receive."

What Customers Need to Know

Still, potential NetCustomer clients have many questions about the Oracle case and how it relates to the third-party maintenance business, Pandey notes. "You can imagine that a lot of the customers are also hesitant right now." One of the first things that netCustomer's team makes clear is that "we do not download anything on our servers and our systems, because [the code] really belongs to customers," she says. "They download everything that they're entitled to from their vendor, whether it's from Oracle, SAP or any other vendor."

According to Rowe: "Rimini Street, as we have commented previously, has safeguards in place to keep such issues from occurring in its operations."

Pandey suspects that one critical area of the case will be the specifics of Oracle's license agreement with its customers who hired TomorrowNow, though she says that she doesn't have any insights into the details, other than what's been publicly available. "The jury is still out on what the license says," she notes.

NetCustomer's strategy for the future success depends on "not cutting corners," she says, when it comes to servicing its customers. "We have always followed extremely stringent measures when it comes to IP protection, copyright protection and security," Pandey says. "And following that process you still can create a really healthy third-party market over the next few years."

Pandey says she'll continue to follow the case, looking at any key findings available from publicly available information. "But it's not an all-consuming affair," she adds, "because we can sift through a lot of the clutter and [in certain cases] say this is just two big guys going after each other."

 

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