Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications
    • Database
    • Small Business

    SAP to End TomorrowNow Application Support Operations

    By
    John Pallatto
    -
    July 21, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      SAP is going to kill off its ill-fated TomorrowNow acquisition by winding down its remaining application support operations by the end of October.

      SAP is locked in a bruising legal battle with Oracle, which claims that TomorrowNow illegally downloaded copyrighted Oracle product support documentation and code.

      However, the decision to close down the remaining TomorrowNow doesn’t mean that there is any active effort between the two companies to settle the lawsuit. The case is scheduled to go to trial in February 2010, and the adversaries haven’t made any move toward resolving the suit in court-ordered settlement conferences. SAP has said it will pursue a vigorous defense against this lawsuit.

      The next settlement conference is scheduled for Oct. 6.

      While SAP says that the shutdown won’t have any material effect on its financial results, this acquisition has certainly produced nothing but losses for the company since it bought the company in February 2005.

      It looks like the financial pain is destined to get much worse. SAP has publicly conceded that its TomorrowNow subsidiary had downloaded documentation that it wasn’t authorized to access. However, SAP contends it never itself accessed this information or benefited from it.

      But Oracle has since amended its lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to add patent infringement and breach of contract charges. It looks like Oracle has a winning hand in this lawsuit, and it could cost SAP many millions of dollars to settle it, whether or not the case actually goes to trial.

      SAP hasn’t had good luck recently winning lawsuits. At the end of June supply chain software maker i2 Technologies announced it would receive an $83 million cash payment from SAP to settle a patent infringement lawsuit.

      SAP announced its shutdown of TomorrowNow a week after announcing that it was moving its own support and maintenance services to a single-tier “Enterprise Support” system for all customers regardless of their size and IT budget. The new program is going to result in higher support costs for most customers as it is phased in over the next four years.

      My boss, eWEEK Executive News Editor Michael Hickins, wrote in his E-piphanies blog that the TomorrowNow debacle, like the decision to move to a higher-cost Enterprise Support program, will only serve to push customers to third-party application maintenance and support services.

      SAP to Help Transition TomorrowNow Customers

      SAP says it will work with TomorrowNow’s remaining 225 customers to transition them to Oracle support or to other third-party support services.

      “We will look at each customer’s needs and work with each of them to help them choose their best options” for application support, said SAP spokesperson Saswato Das.

      “We intend to have all of them transitioned by Oct. 31,” which is SAP’s target date for winding down TomorrowNow’s operations, Das said.

      SAP expects that shutting down TomorrowNow will have no material effect on SAP’s financial results, Das said.

      SAP acquired TomorrowNow in February 2005 after Oracle completed its acquisition of PeopleSoft, one of the top makers of ERP application software. SAP saw an opportunity in providing an alternative third-party application support service to PeopleSoft customers who didn’t want to buy support services directly from Oracle.

      Oracle warned SAP at the time of the acquisition that it would be watching to make sure that TomorrowNow didn’t violate any of its intellectual property rights. Oracle filed suit in March 2007, saying that it had observed TomorrowNow accessing its servers to download massive amounts of its copyrighted documentation.

      SAP started winding down TomorrowNow’s operations in November 2007 when it warned TomorrowNow customers that they had to move their support applications off TomorrowNow’s computers in its data center and shift them to their own computers or some other data center.

      John Pallatto
      John Pallatto has been editor in chief of QuinStreet Inc.'s eWEEK.com since October 2012. He has more than 40 years of experience as a professional journalist working at a daily newspaper and computer technology trade journals. He was an eWEEK managing editor from 2009 to 2012. From 2003 to 2007 he covered Enterprise Application Software for eWEEK. From June 2007 to 2008 he was eWEEK’s West Coast news editor. Pallatto was a member of the staff that launched PC Week in March 1984. From 1992 to 1996 he was PC Week’s West Coast Bureau chief. From 1996 to 1998 he was a senior editor with Ziff-Davis Internet Computing Magazine. From 2000 to 2002 Pallatto was West Coast bureau chief with Internet World Magazine. His professional journalism career started at the Hartford Courant daily newspaper where he worked from 1974 to 1983.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Applications

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      Applications

      Kyndryl’s Nicolas Sekkaki on Handling AI and...

      James Maguire - November 9, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nicolas Sekkaki, Group Practice Leader for Applications, Data and AI at Kyndryl, about how companies can boost both their AI and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×