SAP Fires Back at Oracle CEO Ellison

SAP reacted quickly and angrily to statements made by Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison during his company’s quarterly results meeting Tuesday.

Ellison’s statements about SAP’s product and acquisition strategy are “a complete misrepresentation,” said Bill Wohl, SAP’s vice president of product and solutions public relations, in a statement.

Oracle’s CEO said his company’s Fusion middleware is “years ahead” of SAP’s rival NetWeaver product, and that “NetWeaver is still relatively new and still incomplete.” He also said, “SAP has delayed the next release of its applications until 2010,” and, “They’ll be two full years behind our Fusion release.”

Wohl said Oracle’s next-generation applications exist “only in PowerPoint” and won’t be delivered until 2008 or beyond.

He called Oracle statements about both its own products and SAP’s “inconsistent and misleading.” He said Oracle made conflicting statements about Fusion’s development. “In January, Oracle claimed they were halfway to Fusion, and two weeks ago they said they were not even halfway done. Oracle needs to adopt one version of the truth, and be honest with the market on its actual progress.”

-Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service (Beijing Bureau)

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