Oracle’s Claims Against SAP, TomorrowNow, could have a chilling effect on some channel support

If you haven’t been paying attention to Oracle’s lawsuit against SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow,  then you may want to start. If you’re in the business of providing after-market support for packaged applications, or migrating customers from one package to another,  then how this suit plays out may have a direct effect on you.

Oracle is suing over alleged misuse of customers’ support licenses for PeopleSoft applications. TomorrowNow, a company started by ex-PeopleSoft execs, is in the business of getting clients off PeopleSoft and onto SAP’s applications; allegedly, TomorrowNow employees accessed support data from Oracle improperly to provide support for Oracle applications—and passing technical data along to other partners.

If Oracle is successful in this legal gambit, it could make life interesting for SIs and VARs who provide their own, discounted training and support to clients for packaged applications like Oracle’s, or other technology. If you provide technical assistance to a customer as part of a migration or upgrade, or offer alternatives to the support and training provided by suppliers, are you opening yourself up to the kinds of claims Oracle is making?

–Sean Gallagher