Published on the 30/09/2014 | Written by Newsdesk
A legal war has been launched by BMC Software against fast growing cloud based rival ServiceNow with BMC claiming seven of its IT systems management patents have been infringed…
BMC Software, a veteran of the IT systems management market, has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against ServiceNow in the US District Court. It claims that seven of its patents have been infringed in tools sold by ServiceNow for incident and problem management, performance analytics, configuration management, systems discovery, orchestration, and change and release management.
In Australia ServiceNow, which sells purely cloud-based services, has carved out a significant user base including AGL, Bupa Australia, Fairfax Media, Deakin University and Orica.
BMC has argued in its suit that while it has more than 300 current and pending patents, ServiceNow has none.
According to BMC’s most senior in house lawyer, Patrick Tagtow; “BMC Software has invested billions of dollars and years of hard work in our innovative and foundational technology. We must protect our technology against those who would try to make it their own without permission. ServiceNow’s widespread infringement of BMC’s patents has left us with no choice but to go to court.”
According to BMC’s lawsuit ServiceNow founder, Fred Luddy has given media interviews in the past where he has described his approach to innovation by saying “… good artists copy and great artists steal, and I’ve been a thief all my life”. However in a 2011 article Luddy said that he began developing the software for ServiceNow in 2003 after leaving Peregrine Systems.
Whatever the software’s heritage there is certainly little love between the two companies, earlier this year ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman reportedly described BMC’s systems as “Soviet style” legacy software, while last year in a report published in Computing UK he was quoted saying: “BMC’s Remedy business is literally melting down to the absolute core, seriously. We have grown 28 quarters in a row and we’ve been feeding on the BMC carcass. We’ve had literally more than 100 percent growth for eight years in a row and a quarter of it is coming from BMC.”
