SAP is battling Oracle in court over its TomorrowNow subsidiary.
But as it kicks off Sapphire in Orlando this morning, it is also facing its own version of "TomorrowNow". Rimini Street, which has offered such services around several Oracle applications, is announcing third party maintenance around SAP products.
While many software vendors consider third party maintenance a threat to their manhood, it is really about customer choice. SAP, in particular, will have a tough time saying third party maintenance is not right for its customers when it has been offering it to Oracle customers. In the past it has dodged the question why it does not offer its own customers a basic maintenance option.
Rimini's offerings should be of interest to "end-of-life" and budget-constrained customers - those that do not want to migrate to ECC 6.0, or those that just cannot justify SAP maintenance at full rates.
As I have written before on many occasions, just because you bought a Porsche, does not mean you have to go to the company dealers for all services.
