Last week, we were hit with the news that SAP has decided on a maintenance commitment for SAP S/4HANA® until the end of 2040. At the same time, SAP will provide mainstream maintenance for core applications of SAP® Business Suite 7 software until the end of 2027 followed by optional extended maintenance until the end of 2030.
The announcement comes after UKISUG Chairman, Paul Cooper highlighted how the end of life of Business Suite 7 (ERP/ECC 6.0) and lack of clarity around the roadmap for S/4HANA have not helped the customer relationship in his opening keynote at UKISUG Connect. And Christian Klein claims he understands this and the fact that customers need the additional flexibility according to CBR.
Migrating to HANA is both expensive and hugely risky for SAP customers. Many cannot see the business value especially with the additional end-user training, ComputerWeekly reports. Opposing this, The Register told that SAP couldn't help but bang the S/4HANA drum - regardless of blinking first - saying that 13,800 customers have already "chosen" the software – which seemed a little fabricated with the (now extended) deadline looming.
Even more optimistically, SAP anticipate that this announcement will lead to the majority of customers to have at least ‘bought into’ S/4 and be on the road to S/4 – which would require incredibly favourable circumstances to achieve, states diginomica.
In all, the User group has welcomed the decision to extend the support for Business Suite 7, and has described it as “welcome reprieve for end users struggling to plan huge migrations” yet ITPro reports CEO of software firm IFS Darren Roos said: “Even with a two-year extension, there simply aren’t the skills or resources available to migrate everyone by that deadline.”
So, opinions are mixed. What we do know according to SiliconAngle is the additional breathing room can either buy those customers some additional time to consider alternatives or harden their migration plans.
