One customer, Kerstin Schilling, chief executive of Bestsidestory GmbH, an online marketing provider based in Leipzig, Germany, hesitated a year before committing to Web-based software from SAP, in part because the firm evoked fears of long project installations and high costs.

WSJ: Slow Start for SAP's Web-Based Software

Several Private Investigation firms in Israel were found to have tricked their targets into installing custom Trojan software which then stole documents and exported them to servers in Germany and the UK. They were using a service developed by Michael Haephrati.

FORBES: Modern malware requires modern methodologies to block

But the Web is a freewheeling experiment in creative destruction, and an itsy-bitsy piece of software out of Germany might muck up the realm of flashy display ads, an industry on which a Micro-hoo would depend heavily for its ad revenue.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But Oracle said Microsoft's planned takeover of Germany's SAP showed that the DoJ had underestimated the intensity of competition in the software industry.

BBC: NEWS | Business | Oracle rustles Microsoft-SAP plan