Businesses across Asia Pacific are switching to third-party support providers for Oracle and SAP software products, despite an ongoing legal battle between Rimini Street and Oracle concerning copyright infringement.

South Korea’s Kakao, a leading Internet and mobile messaging service, recently reported it has taken back control of its IT roadmap by switching to Rimini Street’s third-party support for its Oracle Database.

The announcement stated Kakao will now receive ‘ultra-responsive’ support for its mission-critical Oracle Database for at least 15 years, despite being happy with Oracle’s robust database system.

The Internet company that provides gaming, music and mobile messaging services to tens of thousands of customers every day reportedly saved 50% in support fees as a result of the switch.

In a time when businesses are constantly looking for new ways to digitally transform their businesses, Tonny Yi, the Head of Kakao’s data platform team, said: “My team is now free to focus on other initiatives to improve our business, like database migration.”

The 10-year legal battle surrounding Oracle and Rimini Street

Oracle and Rimini Street have been caught in a legal battle since January 2010. Oracle filed the suit against Rimini Street alleging software copyright violations. 

A jury ruled in favour of Oracle in 2015 on one count of “innocent infringement” meaning that Rimini Street did not deliberately infringe on copyright laws. 

A United States District Court in Nevada handed Rimini Street a permanent injunction in August 2018 ordering Rimini Street to not reproduce or distribute Oracle software. This court battle has led to Rimini Street paying out more than US$100 million to Oracle.

The legal battle also determined that third-party support is a legal service. But the rivalry continues between Oracle and Rimini Street, as both list comparisons between their services on their websites.

Oracle claims that Rimini Street is ‘incomplete’ and ‘lacks real security’, as it ‘relies primarily on firewalls’ and ‘can’t take advantage of new technology to drive business innovation and growth’.

While Rimini Street purports to provide ‘support with 15-minute guaranteed response time for Priority 1 issues’ over Oracle with ‘no forced upgrades’ and ‘strategic vendor-neutral security guidance’.

Malaysia’s first national car company drives the switch to Rimini Street

Malaysia’s first national car company Proton also made the switch from SAP’s support of their ECC 6.0 applications to Rimini Street in May, as the manufacturer looks to expand their plants in Perak to enable increased production volumes.

Tough economic conditions in Malaysia led to the switch, which forced Proton to reduce its overall operating expenses by 30%, so annual fees from technology providers were scrutinised and a decision was made to switch support providers.

Andrew Seow, Regional General Manager for Southeast Asia and Greater China at Rimini Street said: “During times of economic uncertainty, companies must act quickly to focus on reducing risk, optimizing budgets and improving efficiency.”

The Australian Government establishes agreement with Rimini Street

In February, Rimini Street announced it has agreed to a whole-of-government volume sourcing agreement with the Australian Government.

The agreement is part of the Government’s agenda to transform ICT procurement to make it simpler, clearer and faster for agencies and industry to transact services.

The CEO of the Digital Transformation Agency for the Australian Government, Randall Brugeaud said: “[We] continue to expand whole-of-government volume sourcing agreements to ensure that agencies have ready access to the best pricing, terms and conditions that leverage the buying power of government.”

Rimini Street works with a number of government agencies in Australia, including the NSW Department of Family and Community Services as well as the Victorian Government Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.

Emmanuelle Hose, Regional General Manager for Australia and New Zealand at Rimini Street, said Government agencies of all sizes now have ‘more options to consider in support of the GovERP Initiative’.

Australia’s Department of Finance has already chosen SAP’s S/4HANA platform for its new common enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This cloud-based system will consolidate HR and financial data from across federal public service and deliver a range of standardised corporate and financial services.

This decision by the Department of Finance came before the timely announcement that Rimini Street will provide global support for SAP S/4HANA. 

There are a lot of advancements in the third-party software support. In February, Garner predicted that the market would grow by 200% by 2023 to US$1.05 billion, which could be inline with Rimini Street’s recent record quarterly revenue achievement of US$78 million.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the Oracle and SAP respond to the disruptor that is Rimini Street and the moves they make to react to the growing third-party software support market.