Oracle and SAP have finally settled a long-running and bitter dispute surrounding software piracy, with the two vendors coming to an agreement after seven years of battling in the courts.

The case surrounds TomorrowNow, a now defunct US-based affiliate of SAP, which illegally downloaded over eight million instances of Oracle customer support software. Oracle claimed that those instances, along with hundreds of thousands of support documents, were used in efforts to lure 350 customers away from Oracle and towards SAP.

Throughout the legal dispute, Oracle argued that the illegally downloaded documents allowed SAP to steal Oracle customers by offering them TomorrowNow maintenance services at a lower cost.

Oracle initially sued SAP in 2007, but finally after years of trials and appeals, the two firms have now settled, with SAP paying $356.7m (£228m) in compensation to Oracle. The figure represents a much lower one than the $1.3bn a jury suggested should be paid in 2010, but Oracle is pleased with the outcome of the lawsuit.

“We are thrilled about this landmark recovery and extremely gratified that our efforts to protect innovation and our shareholders’ interests are duly rewarded,” Oracle’s general counsel Dorian Daley said in a statement.

SOURCE: computing.co.uk