A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reassured members of the open source software movement by declaring that software distributed for free is still protectable by copyright. Open source software development thrives on continuous additions and improvements made by many different people, but attribution of preexisting code to the previous…
Atul Malhotra, 42, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Malhotra was a director of sales and business development in IBM’s Global Services Division for nearly a decade, from 1997-2006. He obtained confidential pricing info regarding IBM’s products and materials,…
One of the biggest mistakes we see clients make when they are negotiating a software license agreement with SAP is that they focus solely on pricing and discounts to the exclusion of other important issues contained in the SAP software license agreement. Focusing solely on pricing while ignoring the other terms and conditions contained in…
From the ERP and More! Blog – the top 7 ERP Implementation Analogies: 1. The implementation will be like open heart surgery while the patient is still alive and working. 2. An ERP implementation is like the corporate equivalent of a brain transplant. 3. I think of ERP implementations like mountain climbing: No two are the…
A tiny Palatine, IL-based software company has sued giant Google Inc., alleging that Google misappropriated the company’s trade secrets. LimitNone LLC, a software startup with fewer than five employees, developed a software tool to help users of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Outlook email client move their data to Google’s online programs. The complaint alleges that copies of…
SAP has agreed to pay i2 $83 million to settle a patent infringement lawsuit brought by i2 in 2006. According to an i2 SEC filing, the settlement was reached on June 23. A copy of the SEC filing is located here.
This is the first in a series of posts dealing with the SAP contract negotiation process. SAP’s market dominance often leaves customers with little negotiating leverage. Companies that have a well developed negotiation strategy, an understanding of SAP’s typical concessions, pricing structure and contractual “pain points,” greatly increase their chances of successfully negotiating with SAP. The…
An interesting video from last year discussing the history of Chicago-based Midway Games’ Mortal Kombat series located here.
SearchSAP.com is reporting that SAP has announced its intention to purchase Visiprise, a software company that specializes in manufacturing execution. The acquisition is intended to bolster integration capabilities with respect to NetWeaver as well as bolster SAP’s strength in the manufacturing sector. Companies using Visiprise that do not also use SAP should be concerned about being forced…
On June 12, Marcus Harris spoke to members of the Distribution Solutions Council (DSC) on software licensing and how to use the contract negotiation process as a competitive differentiator. The DSC is an industry round-table of software executives with an interest in serving the distribution marketplace, exploring new ideas beneficial to the industry and discussing best…