I have been aware of the discussions for a while now, but word is leaking out that Siemens, one of SAP’s largest customers (and even more significantly a peer German company) is canceling maintenance and evaluating third party options. Here is a Google translation of a report from golem.de
My question is why has it taken so long? Vinnie “Maintenance” first blogged about 3rd party maintenance in March 2005.
So, SAP has had plenty of warnings. To me, it was incredibly brazen (or naive) to
- have acquired TomorrowNow to offer Oracle customers cut-rate third party maintenance, and not offer something similar to its own mature customers
- try and push through an increase in maintenance over the last few months in the middle of one of the worst recessions in history.
Siemens’s message is clear. Forget 22% with KPIs, even 17% is too high as I wrote here.
What is interesting is IBM is being reported as one of the candidates Siemens is evaluating to provide it third party maintenance.
I wonder if IBM is just as brazen (or naive) as SAP was and thinks it can get away without offering similar cut rate maintenance to its own mature Notes, Tivoli, Websphere and other software customers.
Update: Ray Wang's analysis
see also my clarification today
