Mumbai: Software maker SAP AG has admitted that its subsidiary, TomorrowNow, had carried out "inappropriate downloads" of documents belonging to rival Oracle Corp but denied SAP itself had access to the material. (See: Oracle sues SAP for ''theft'' of corporate information)

TomorrowNow should not have made some of the downloads, SAP chief executive Henning Kagermann said replying to Oracle''s charges of intellectual property theft, adding that firewalls had protected the material from SAP''s view.

"Even a single inappropriate download is unacceptable from my perspective. We regret very much that this occurred," Kagermann said.

SAP, the world''s biggest maker of business software, said both it and TomorrowNow will supply documents demanded by the US justice department. A SAP spokesman declined to comment further.

SAP said it had installed a new executive chairman to help ensure proper practices at TomorrowNow, a specialist in support for Oracle legacy software, which SAP bought in 2005 to help it win over Oracle customers.

TomorrowNow has annual sales of €15.7 million ($21.4 million / Rs90 crore) and 157 staff.

Oracle sued SAP in March, alleging corporate theft on a grand scale through the use of customers'' online access codes to steal copyrighted software.

In its suit, Oracle has claimed that staff at TomorrowNow, a firm bought by SAP in 2005, had accessed Oracle''s computer network last year and illegally downloaded and assembled a storehouse of stolen Oracle intellectual property comprising copyrighted software and other material

SAP said it had found that most of TomorrowNow''s downloads had been for the legitimate purpose of helping customers, but a few had been inappropriate.

Oracle and SAP have been battling for years for supremacy of the lucrative enterprise software market, estimated at $60 billion. During Oracle''s acquisitions, SAP offered Oracle customers a "safe passage" programme that would guarantee support for Oracle products with the help of companies like TomorrowNow.

Kagermann said SAP''s safe passage programme to win customers away from Oracle would continue and that he did not expect the case to have any impact on SAP''s US business.

SAP says it has so far won about 740 Oracle customers through the safe passage programme. Kagermann, however, declined to comment on any financial provisions SAP might have made for the lawsuit ahead of second-quarter results due for release on July 19.

Kagermann said SAP was open to all options, including a settlement but expected no big developments before the next hearing scheduled for September at the US district court in San Francisco.

Oracle, which made a string of acquisitions recently, is increasingly competing with SAP''s core business of supplying software to automate and streamline processes ranging from human resources management to budgeting at large enterprises.

Oracle has spent $20 billion in recent years buying up companies to challenge SAP''s leadership in business applications, said it had succeeded in forcing SAP to disclose its activities.