By Dennis Howlett, 16 July 2008 15:17
NEWS
SAP has announced it plans to transition all customers to its new Enterprise Support offering from 1 January 2009.
SAP is pitching this as a service that adds customer value but in reality it means a cost increase. In a statement SAP said: "Subject to specific contractual limitations, a typical customer paying 17 per cent of maintenance base for SAP Standard Support in 2008 will pay a rate of 18.3 per cent of maintenance base for SAP Enterprise Support in 2009."
While SAP is claiming this as an enhanced offering, it is difficult to see how it will be able to justify this level of fees for customers whose deployments are complete or which do not wish to upgrade. Right now it is focusing attention on the benefits of SOA as a way of extending core functionality into what it calls composite applications.
SAP has a user base of 47,800 customers yet is only claiming to have brought 350 of its customers on board in the first six months since the program was launched.
Assuming SAP is successful in signing most of its customers by January 2009 then, based on the numbers so far released for 2008 and the company's projections going forward, the price hike should yield approximately $60m in additional revenue during 2009.
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