Oracle's plan to drag its legal fight against rival SAP's defunct TomorrowNow subsidiary through a second trial is not surprising, analysts said Tuesday.

The ongoing lawsuit between Oracle and third-party support provider Rimini Street has heated up further, with new allegations that Oracle is "abusing" the pre-trial discovery process and using "scare tactics" against customers in order to hurt Rimini Street's business.

A federal jury has ordered SAP to pay Versata Software damages of $US345 million in connection with a patent infringement lawsuit.

SAP wants a judge to reduce the $US1.3 billion award a jury granted Oracle last year in its intellectual property-theft lawsuit to no more than $408.7 million, and also asked for a new trial, according to filings made late Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

SAP on Thursday reported preliminary results for the fourth quarter and year ending Dec. 31 that showed a strong uptick in software revenue, spurred in part by its acquisition of Sybase last year.

Oracle's lawsuit against Rimini Street is not slowing the smaller company's momentum, as it logged its best-ever performance in the fourth quarter, according to an announcement Tuesday.

Prolonging the battle between SAP and Oracle, following last week's £820 million damages award, could hurt enterprise software users and change the support landscape.

An analyst today expressed surprise at yesterday's federal verdict requiring that SAP pay Oracle $1.4 billion in damages for the theft of intellectrual property.