The nascent market for third-party SAP application support gained another player on Thursday, with Spinnaker Support announcing a service that will place it in competition with the likes of Rimini Street.

A company that has been providing third-party support for Oracle's JD Edwards ERP (enterprise resource planning) software is undergoing a significant expansion of its efforts, despite the ongoing cloud of litigation over the market.

Epicor is trying to stop Utah IT services firm Applied Integration from providing third-party support for its Dimensions software, alleging that the company has committed illegal acts in the course of doing so, according to a lawsuit filed this month in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Oracle is alleging that two companies violated its intellectual property as part of a "gray market" conspiracy to provide support for Oracle's Sun Solaris OS and hardware, according to a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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.

Oracle and a large New York law firm are in a legal dispute over $US1,500 that has likely already rung up many times that amount in costs, according to recent court documents in Oracle's lawsuit against third-party software support provider Rimini Street.

A growing number of ERP (enterprise resource planning) software customers are considering a jump to third-party software support providers, according to new data from analyst firm Constellation Research.

Oracle has subpoenaed scores of Rimini Street customers in connection with its intellectual property suit against the third-party software maintenance provider, but at least one has no interest in complying with its demands.

Both tech vendors are aiming to change the rules of game for enterprise software. And while they're going about it with two different business models, the companies share some things in common.