VERSATA FILES EU COMPLAINT AGAINST SAP FOR ABUSING DOMINANCE
Versata alleges:
SAP illegally excluded Versata from selling to vast majority of large ERP customers
SAP uses tactics the European Commission found illegal in 2004 Microsoft case
Versata seeks remedies so it can compete on the merits of its products
AUSTIN, TX – May 13, 2010 – Versata Enterprises released today Version 3.7 of Versata’s Insurance-specific ICM application, Versata Distribution Channel Management (DCM), along with advanced business process management capabilities. DCM centralizes payment of compensation across multiple channels and lines of business and streamlines all aspects of the producer life cycle. Many of the world’s largest Insurance and Brokerage companies use Versata’s DCM solution, including several Fortune 1000 customers.
“DCM 3.7 marks another key milestone for Versata, expanding DCM‘s market-leading functionality for the insurance and brokerage industries with pre-built, streamlined processes for on-boarding, dispute resolution, contract management, and compensation administration. These new processes are built on a state of the art business process management platform that allows customers to implement those processes 2X faster and 80% cheaper than comparable vendor and custom solutions,” said Leela Kaza, General Manager, Versata Insurance & Financial Services Practice.
“DCM 3.7 also provides valuable usability enhancements for updating transaction, distributor, and bulk hierarchy information to allow insurance and brokerage industry specific changes with just a few mouse clicks, rather than relying on time-consuming processes or costly IT changes behind the scenes,” said Chris Strahorn, Director of Product Management
Versata DCM 3.7 also provides customers information on the efficiency of their business processes and the tools to rapidly and inexpensively eliminate those inefficiencies. The out-of-the-box data integration tool allows business users to resolve data feed problems, by providing details of the error causes, empowering the customer to resolve errors with a user friendly tool, without incurring additional IT costs. This is particularly valuable to Versata’s Fortune 1000 customers, who work with very high data volumes with millions of records being fed to DCM daily.
About Versata Enterprises, Inc. With a global presence in 45 countries from North America to Europe and Asia, Versata Enterprises, Inc., provides enterprise applications for automating and streamlining critical business processes.
Coupled with Versata’s Customer Success Program whereby customers define criteria for a successful relationship and Versata commits to delivering them, the Versata portfolio is the leading option for business and IT organizations looking to deliver business value and lower cost to their customers. Further information is available at http://www.versata.com.
BRUSSELS, June 29 - Versata Software, Inc., complained to the European Commission on Tuesday that SAP A.G. illegally excluded it from selling to the three quarters of the world's largest companies that use SAP’s enterprise software platform, withholding information necessary to interoperate.
Versata, of Austin, Texas, at one time worked successfully with SAP, of Walldorf, Germany, the biggest European software company. Versata's pricing software (named "Pricer") was popular with customers of SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software.
A SAP executive noticed Pricer was “raking in the cash among the SAP customers,” according to documents filed in a patent case. SAP took three steps that excluded Versata and reserved the pricing software market to itself: It refused to share interoperability information, cloned Versata's Pricer, and then bundled its cloned pricing software with its dominant ERP product. SAP's actions violate Article 102 of the European Union treaty by foreclosing competition, eliminating choice and competition-driven innovation, thereby harming consumers.
“Versata asks at minimum that the Commission require SAP provide interoperability information, and that it unbundle its own pricing configuration software from its dominant ERP software,” said Thomas Vinje, counsel for Versata. "The Commission should also impose an appropriate fine."
MICROSOFT TACTICS
The Versata complaint cites the Microsoft case, in which many of the same tactics were found to be illegal. Microsoft paid fines of 1.6 billion euros and was forced to change its business practices. Versata said Commission action in its case would open the market and give customers the choice of “best of breed” software, made by Versata and others.
ERP software runs core company tasks such as financial and personnel operations, while pricing software works alongside large ERP systems, like those made by SAP and Oracle. Pricing software allows companies to apply complex prices that are based on a huge variety of factors – everything from color and size to where a product is sold, or what time of day it is sold. For example, it tracks the myriad of choices in automobile accessories and styles, along with discounts and sales, or the price of electricity and phone calls at certain times and in particular places.
Versata, formerly known as Trilogy, was long recognized as a pioneer and leader in pricing software. Once Versata became successful in the late 1990s SAP changed interfaces , which had the effect of “breaking” communication with Versata's software. SAP then told clients Versata software would not work properly.
“First SAP created problems for Versata's superior product to work with SAP's dominant enterprise software, and then SAP told customers that Versata's product would not work properly,” said Vinje.
SAP bundled in its own, less flexible, clone of Versata's software, selling the package for a single price. That clone relied on Versata's patented technology. A U.S. District Court jury in Marshall, Texas, last year found that SAP infringed on Versata's patents, and awarded it $139 million in damages. That case is awaiting a ruling on several post-trial matters and the entry of judgment by the U.S. District Court.
Versata allows companies more ways to mix and match prices than any software offered by SAP. As a result companies can offer consumers more variety and greater choice, in everything from telecommunications and computers to automobiles.
“Versata has been marginalized by SAP's anti-competitive behaviour but if SAP is required to allow Versata to compete again, companies can decide for themselves which is superior,” said Vinje.
Contact:
David Lawsky +32 2 613 2828, mobile +32 472 91 47 48,
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Thomas Vinje +32 2 533 5929,
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