SAP, one of the world’s leading ERP software vendors, has made a series of legally binding commitments following a European Commission antitrust investigation. While the legal documentation is extensive, the practical implications for SAP customers could be significant. See the EU commission release here – Commission accepts binding commitments by SAP to address competition concerns and the full documentation about the commitment here AT_40823_7293.pdf.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by:
- Paying maintenance on software licenses you no longer use;
- High reinstatement fees discouraging you from suspending SAP support;
- Being forced into the same maintenance model across all your on-premises SAP ERP applications, regardless of business priorities.
…then these changes are worth paying attention to.
What has changed?
The commitments introduce several measures that provide customers with greater flexibility:
✅ Lower cost of returning to SAP support: reinstatement fees will be removed. Instead, customers returning to SAP maintenance will pay either 50% of the missed maintenance fees or six months’ maintenance, whichever is lower. This makes it far easier to pause SAP support, evaluate alternative providers, and return if needed.
✅ Greater freedom over support choices: customers will be able to choose different levels of support, or no SAP support at all, for different on-premises ERP products. This reduces vendor lock-in and allows organisations to prioritise support budgets where they deliver the most value.
✅ Simplified licensing: SAP has committed to increasing the availability of single licence metrics, helping organisations reduce licensing complexity and simplify administration.
✅ More flexibility to reduce licences: customers will gain additional rights to terminate licences and associated maintenance in defined situations, including:
- Business divestitures;
- Significant workforce reductions;
- Insolvency proceedings;
- Certain SAP-attributable implementation failures.
This gives organizations more practical ways to align licensing and maintenance costs with changing business needs instead of remaining tied to unused software.
A few important considerations
These commitments are positive, but they don’t remove the need for effective SAP license management.
Not every licence metric is beneficial. Simpler metrics can sometimes lead to higher long-term costs. For example, a revenue-based metric may be easy to administer, but growing revenue can quickly increase licence costs, even if software usage remains unchanged.
Governance is more important than ever. SAP has committed to establishing an internal process to ensure these commitments are applied correctly. However, organizations still need internal expertise to understand their license estate, identify optimization opportunities, and verify they’re receiving the benefits they’re entitled to.
The new commitments represent a meaningful shift towards greater customer flexibility, but organizations that actively manage their SAP environments will be best positioned to take advantage of them.
At ITAM, we’ve helped organizations manage SAP license portfolios worth more than €50 million across multiple industries. If you’d like to understand what these changes could mean for your organization, feel free to get in touch for a conversation.
Important disclaimer: These commitments primarily improve commercial flexibility and customer choice around SAP maintenance, support, and certain contractual rights. They do not change SAP’s underlying licensing rules, measurement methodologies, indirect-use policies, compliance requirements, or audit rights. Organizations will still need effective Software Asset Management practices to ensure licence compliance and identify optimisation opportunities.
