Oracle's Fighting Words

The accusations don't get much hotter than this. Enterprise software player Oracle on Thursday filed a complaint in a California court alleging that rival vendor SAP has been robbing them blind. I doubt it said exactly that in the federal court filing. But according to this internetnews.com article, Oracle's complaint accuses its German competitor of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and of engaging in corporate theft "on a grand scale."

In a complaint filed in California's Northern District Court in San Francisco, Oracle accused the German software company of engaging in "systematic, illegal access" to its computer support systems. "Through this scheme, SAP has stolen thousands of proprietary, copyrighted software products and other confidential materials that Oracle developed to service its own support customers," the complaint said. In addition, it said "SAP gained repeated and unauthorized access, in many cases by use of pretextual customer log-in credentials, to Oracle's proprietary, password-protected customer support Web site. From that Web site, SAP has copied and swept thousands of Oracle software products and other proprietary and confidential materials onto its own servers.

My first thought is, it's refreshing to see legal action in the software industry that doesn't involve Microsoft. That said, these are explosive charges and, depending on how things play out, this could be the year's most high-profile courtroom battle between technology giants. And the international angle adds an exotic touch. This story has a lot of details about the charges. Here's an interesting one:

Oracle said an SAP employee named Wade Walden impersonated the former Oracle customer Honeywell International to repeatedly gain access to Oracle's customer site. Oracle identifies Walden as a former PeopleSoft employee now working for SAP. Oracle acquired PeopleSoft in 2004.

Oracle has requested an injunction prohibiting SAP from further accessing the customer-support site. It also seeks the return of stolen property and demands unspecified restitution and punitive damages.