Legal proceedings involving SimpleOne and related industry developments

Dear Customers, Partners, Colleagues, and Members of the IT Community

We live in an era of rapid technological transformation. The rise of cloud architectures, open-source ecosystems, AI-powered tools, and increasingly skilled engineering teams has dramatically shortened the development cycle for complex IT products. Startups are now building solutions in just a few years that match — and in some cases, surpass — the functionality, agility, architectural sophistication, and competitive pricing of offerings from industry giants.

As a result, young engineering teams are increasingly competing with established market leaders — once considered untouchable. This is a natural process — but the more intense the competition, the greater the market tension. When a fast-moving and competitive product emerges, incumbent leaders may question how such results were achieved. This can lead to investigations and legal actions.

SimpleOne found itself in precisely such a situation: rapid product growth and the migration of several companies from Western solutions drew the attention of major market players and triggered legal claims. Over the course of several years, we built a product that became a viable alternative — and many organizations switched to it from other platforms.

According to information received from ITGLOBAL.COM NL — a company we had been evaluating as a potential partner for promoting our solutions in the Netherlands and the wider European market — ServiceNow, a vendor of business process automation software, has initiated legal action against them. The claim is based on an alleged case of code theft, based on similarities between SimpleOne's user interface and API method names and those of the ServiceNow platform. These similarities, however, do not constitute evidence of copying, particularly given the complete divergence of our technology stack (programming language, database architecture) and the full history of our product’s evolution in our Git repository.

As part of these proceedings, and with the aim of securing evidence for potential litigation, the Amsterdam District Court issued a ruling authorizing the temporary seizure of data to prevent its possible destruction. Acting on this ruling, Dutch law enforcement officers conducted procedural measures during which data was seized from the corporate devices and systems of ITGLOBAL.COM NL, including email correspondence and business communications.

The Amsterdam court subsequently issued a request to ITGLOBAL.COM NL for fragments of the SimpleOne source code. The request was submitted through a court-appointed bailiff as part of the evidence-gathering procedure. ITGLOBAL.COM NL forwarded this request to us in December 2025, which is when we first became aware of the situation as a whole, including the source code disclosure request. We provided the requested materials in accordance with the court's directive, and ITGLOBAL.COM NL passed them on to the authorities.

Regrettably, these developments have already had significant consequences for us. ITGLOBAL.COM NL has informed us that SimpleOne solutions have been removed from its portfolio and will not be offered for sale until a final court ruling is issued. We respect this as their independent business decision; nonetheless, SimpleOne's reputation has been adversely affected. In light of these circumstances, and given that the matter remains unresolved, we have decided to publicly set out our position to ensure that our current and prospective customers are informed of the facts directly from us.

This situation has prompted us to reflect: how closely does current practice in IT align with the ideal image of competition—where quality of service, technological innovation, and affordable pricing are valued, not artificial barriers? And what systemic changes could be made to support such an approach?

The right of a company to protect its intellectual property is unquestionable. However, balance is essential: in global practice, API similarity is recognized as permissible use for system interoperability (fair use), which supports healthy competition. The emergence of API lock-in practices — those that restrict access to interfaces and limit compatibility — poses a systemic risk to the IT industry. Such practices have the potential to slow not only the development of ESM systems, but digital transformation as a whole.

At the same time, we feel it necessary to state clearly: the code of the SimpleOne platform was developed independently by our team. We did not copy any third-party solutions, nor did we use proprietary architectural components from other vendors.

Moreover, in light of these events, we are considering the partial publication of the SimpleOne platform’s source code. This step could serve as a meaningful contribution to fair competition and transparent pricing.

We believe in an open market, transparent technological progress, and the idea that the future of our industry is shaped by the quality of engineering solutions and a relentless focus on customer value. This is the foundation of SimpleOne—and the basis of the long-term trust we strive to earn.