Tuesday, October 07, 2008

SAP under the spotlight for "broken promises"

Ray Wang, a Forrester analyst, is speaking out on what he calls SAP's broken promises to customers. Ray is conducting a webinar this Thursday on the subject, and Dennis Howlett got Ray's permission to use his blog to comment on some of Ray's slides.

Ray (and Dennis) really lowers the boom on SAP, summing up a number of complaints from SAP customers concerning unilateral hikes in maintenance fees, lack of integration, constant pressure to buy more software, and aggressive sales tactics. His analysis is backed up by a Forrester survey of over 200 SAP customers.

Dennis comments:
Ray sets the backdrop by describing the partnership vision SAP customers have bought into. That includes:
  • SAP would deliver an integrated suite of solutions
  • Maintenance and support fees would be reinvested to fill out the gaps on the product roadmap
  • SAP would not ‘rape and pillage’ the customer like other ERP vendors of the day
He then goes on to show how most of those promises have been broken...
I won't reproduce all of Ray's and Dennis's points here, because I won't do them justice. Read Dennis's summary for yourself. If you want the entire story, you'll need to register for Ray's webinar this Thursday.

Update 1:27 p.m.
Vinnie Mirchandani is blowing the same horn. He also points out that in many respects Oracle is no better than SAP.

Update, Oct 11: Forrester is allowing free download of Ray's entire slide deck. Good move, Forrester! Visit this Forrester page and click the link on the upper right to download Ray's slides.

Related posts
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

reposting: I work with Oracle and SAP customers and there's a huge difference between the two companies maintenance offerings. For example, with Oracle your 22% means you never have to buy the software again. Even though SAP customers now also pay 22%, they are asked to buy the software again - with each new significant release.