Software Theft - Desktop Management Tools
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TME developed the Desktop Management Tool (DMT) that Lockheed provided the VA in fulfillment of the NOAVA contract. Lockheed had agreed that TME maintained legal ownership of all products TME developed. (T-0010-1/-3, Ron Barale letter). The price of each DMT was always represented as $212.00. (Document DMPO-0001). Lockheed unilaterally sought to reduce the price of each DMT to $50.00. (Document DMPO-0002). When TME rejected the $50.00 per unit demand, Lockheed set up a shell company, named the shell company Technology Media Interprises, simply changing the “E” in TME’s name to “I,” and began circumventing TME, stealing and selling TME’s desktop management tool directly to the VA, cutting TME out of the sales. (Documents DMPO-0006 and LMT- 0003-0005). Lockheed committed a conspiracy of theft, involving multiple Lockheed personnel.
Lockheed’s conspiracy included a method to keep TME in the dark, ordering approximately one DMT directly from TME for approximately every ten Lockheed actually sold. TME discovered this conspiracy when Lockheed Dave Etter secretly supplied TME with purchase orders intended for Lockheed internal use to TME, because he was appalled at the theft of TME's products and the brazen internal levity that Lockheed officials displayed savoring their coup. At 9:15 am on April 30, 1992 Barbara Kursteiner called and left a recording on Clovice Lewis' home answering machine requesting two free "evaluation" copies of the DTM for an upcoming demonstration to be made in Washington D.C. A transcript of the recording is as follows:
Good morning Clovice, this is Barbara Kurstiener at Lockheed Integrated Solutions Company in Santa Clara. It's Tuesday, April 30 about 9:15. Clovice, if you have a minute, would you please call me. I'd like to ask you to furnish us at no cost and material basis copies of your software for a demonstration of a NOAVA solution in Washington which is to come about very soon. If you could call me at area code 408-987-4698, I'd appreciate it. Thanks very much Clovice, bye.
These "Evaluation Copies" were copied and sold to the VA without compensating TME. Documents LMT-0003, LMT-0004, and LMT-0005 are accounting documents from a Lockheed internal database that reveal sales of TME’s Desktop Management Tool that Lockheed never ordered from TME and for which TME was never paid. TME can only estimate the number of DMT sales that Lockheed stole, however evidence shows that the demand was enormous. For example, because of the theft and ultimate termination of the relationship with Lockheed, TME received only four customer comment cards after Lockheed began surreptitiously selling TME’s product, but these four comment cards indicate a huge market. (Document REGC-0001/0004.)
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They changed the name on Purchase Orders to "Technology Media Interprises" (instead of Technology Media Enterprises), and had the Purchase Orders made to the attention of a LISC office.
NOTE: Lockheed Martin Corporation does not now own, nor is it associated with, Lockheed Integrated Solutions Company. In all instances "Lockheed" is an abbreviation for Lockheed Integrated Solutions Company. The story presented in this website is for historical and educational purposes only. It is a true account of how systemic racism operated in a corporation in the past, and an exposé of how it operates in the present.