What did SAP get from their $10million acquisition on TomorrowNow? A net loss of $1.3billion penalty due to Oracle. SAP must be remorseful about that deal.
So would SAP still have gone ahead with the $10m January 2005 purchase of fledgling third-party apps support player TomorrowNow had it had any inkling then of the financial cost more than five years later -- a $1.3bn payout to Oracle and a ton of legal fees -- as well as the dent to its previous sterling reputation? TN was always a loss-making business for SAP and at its height attracted less than 400 customers, a tiny proportion of the tens of thousands of Oracle apps customers.
On the losing end of a US$1.3 billion jury verdict for stealing a rival's intellectual property, SAP AG is facing the difficult decision about whether to double down - by appealing - or folding.
Either route is going to cost the German company dearly, and will have implications for how other technology companies approach copyrights.
A jury in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday found that SAP's behavior in plundering software and documents from archenemy Oracle Corp.'s secured websites was so egregious that it awarded Oracle nearly all of the damages it was seeking.
If SAP appeals, it will have to endure several more years of disastrous publicity, a jackpot for Oracle.
Many analysts suspect that SAP will stand down and try and figure out a way to pay one of the biggest software piracy penalties on record. Doing so would put the $10 million acquisition of the tiny, now-shuttered company called TomorrowNow that landed SAP in this mess that much farther in the rearview mirror.
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* Why is SAP accepting TomorrowNow liability at this time?