SAP is to wind down its troubled TomorrowNow subsidiary, the organisation it acquired three years ago to lure Oracle ERP users over to SAP.
TomorrowNow was founded to provide third-party support for the former JD Edwards and PeopleSoft ERP applications, apparently at a fraction of the cost of the Oracle pricelist. However, in SAP’s hands it became a Trojan in its hostilities with Oracle, inviting wholesale transfer on SAP’s Safe Passage programme.
But that started to unravel when, in November last year, SAP had to concede “inappropriate downloads”, by TomorrowNow, of Oracle IP (intellectual property), following a legal challenge, filed by Oracle in March.
At the time, SAP said that TomorrowNow was authorised to download materials from Oracle’s website on behalf of customers, but the company subsequently acknowledged that some fixes and support documents should not have been included.
Senior TomorrowNow managers, including the CEO, then resigned, and SAP said it was “considering several options for the future of the business, including possible sale”.
SAP is now reportedly working with TomorrowNow’s more than 225 customers to help them return to support from Oracle for those on PeopleSoft, JDEdwards or Siebel applications, “or to smoothly transition to new support options”.
Says Mark White, executive chairman, TomorrowNow: “Our goal is to assist our customers in transitioning to a new support provider, including Oracle, without a disruption to their support during the wind-down process.”
SAP says it intends to conclude the wind-down process prior to October 31, 2008.
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