Software support vendor fights back against Oracle
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Rimini Street responds to Oracle's intellectual property theft allegation by accusing the software and systems giant of five year campaign of 'disruption'
Software support and maintenance company Rimini Street is to countersue Oracle, alleging that the enterprise applications vendor has spent the last five years trying to derail the company.
In January, Oracle sued the Las Vegas-based company, which provides third party support for Oracle applications in competition with the software vendor's own support services, accusing the company of intellectual property theft.
Rimini Street has now fired back, claiming that Oracle has attempted to "disrupt" its operations on several occasions since it was founded five years ago. It has accused Oracle of sending "hostile letters", intentionally blocking Rimini Street's IP address and 'interference' with a large client during its switchover from Oracle to Rimini Street support.
The company says that Oracle's January litigation suit is "baseless" and simply a way of maintaining its software services market share.
"[Oracle] began a systematic campaign to disrupt and halt Rimini Street’s business since the inception of the company in 2005," the software maintenance provider said in a statement. "As Rimini Street’s success grew, so did Oracle’s apparent determination and efforts to disrupt Rimini Street’s growth."
Rimini Street said that it contacted Oracle executives in February in order to diffuse the situation but never received a response.
Blogger Dennis Howlett says Oracle provided him with the following comment: "Oracle is committed to customer choice and vigorous competition, but draws the line with any company, big or small, that steals its intellectual property. The massive theft that Rimini and Mr. Ravin engaged in is not healthy competition. We will prove this in court.”
Software support services make up a substantial portion of Oracle's sales. Its most recent quarterly results showed that software license updates and product support accounted for 51% of total revenues, approximately $3.3 billion.
In January 2010, privately-held Rimini Street announced that its revenue grew 270% in 2009.
