SAP accused of anti-competitive behaviour in Europe
Versata Software lodges complaint against SAP with European Commission
By Chris Kanaracus | Published: 17:22, 29 June 2010
Versata Software lodged a complaint against SAP with the European Commission on Tuesday, claiming that the vendor illegally blocked it from selling its pricing software to SAP customers.
SAP made it difficult for Versata's software to work with its ERP (enterprise resource planning) products, according to a statement. In addition, SAP "cloned" Versata's product and bundled the resulting application with its ERP suite, the statement adds.
At a minimum, the EU should demand that SAP provide information related to interoperability and "unbundle its own pricing configuration software from its dominant ERP software," Versata lawyer Thomas Vinje said in a statement. The EU should also impose a fine, he said.
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Versata compared SAP's actions to the ones that resulted in the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft. An EU ruling in Versata's favour would open up the market for pricing software and give customers choice, it said.
"We are evaluating the complaint and offering no comment until that is complete," SAP spokesman Andy Kendzie said in an email.
Versata had previously filed a patent suit against SAP in connection with the alleged product cloning. A jury awarded the company roughly US$139 million in damages last year, although the case is not yet finalised.
