SAP will plead guilty in Tomorrownow criminal case

GERMAN SOFTWARE HAUS SAP will plead guilty to settle criminal charges over its now defunct Tomorrownow subsidiary.

Tomorrownow was accused of downloading information belonging to Oracle. The material consisted of software and customer information relating to Peoplesoft users and the theft was later admitted to and apologised for by co-CEO Bill McDermott in court last year.

Things have moved on since then, though, and in addition to paying a fine of $1.3bn for the theft and closing down the subsidiary, SAP is readying itself for its appearance in court.

According to the Wall Street Journal, SAP will plead guilty to settle the criminal charges.

"We are very pleased that the Department of Justice brought criminal charges against SAP for their widespread and systematic theft of Oracle's intellectual property to which SAP has repeatedly confessed," an Oracle spokeswoman said.

Pleased it might be, but the final payout was less than Oracle would have liked. After accepting the idea of $1.3bn, it then pushed for more, an extra $212m in interest.

SAP meanwhile remained contrite, and even then was wearing its hairshirt.

"The mark of a leading company is the way it handles its mistakes", it said in November. "As stated in court, we regret the actions of TomorrowNow, we have accepted liability, and have been willing to fairly compensate Oracle." µ