For Business Process & Applications Professionals

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	March 3, 2008 SAP Raises Maintenance Fees For New Customers by R "Ray" Wang with Paul D. Hamerman, Meghan Donnelly

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Executive Summary

Business process and applications professionals generally find SAP's Basic Support offering to be reasonably priced, in comparison to competitors (e.g., Oracle). Unfortunately for new customers in 2008, SAP is eliminating the 17% offering and replacing it with its new Enterprise Support offering at 22% of net license price per annum. On the plus side, Enterprise Support expands on services in the previous Premium Support offering with some value-added enhancements, such as 24x7 dedicated coverage. Given existing customer angst over the rising fees and lack of value in most application vendor support and maintenance programs, SAP's Active Global Support (AGS) must show how its new support offering delivers more value than its competitors. Forrester recommends that prospects stick to their guns on 17% maintenance. Existing customers should brace themselves for a price hike or prepare for some intense contract negotiations in the near future.

This is an excerpt