Business Suite 7 maintenance until 2027/2030 and S/4 Hana until 2040

Until now, it has been open and accompanied by speculation as to how things would continue with the SAP ERP solution Business Suite 7 and S/4 Hana after the end of 2025, as the user association DSAG summarizes the mood at the start of the new year.

Even the internal SAP events Fkom 2020 (Field Kick-off Meeting) in Las Vegas, Miami and Barcelona in mid-January did not bring any clarity, as SAP had previously guaranteed existing customers maintenance of Business Suite 7 with AnyDB and NetWeaver stack Abap as well as Java until at least the end of 2025 - nothing more!

"For many customers, this was simply not enough to tackle the digital transformation properly and comprehensively"

explains Andreas Oczko, DSAG Board Member for Operations/Service and Support.

This is why DSAG e. V. has been campaigning for reliable release and maintenance planning from SAP beyond 2025 since March 2019.

The DSAG suggestions were heard and have now been implemented in a concrete perspective.

"SAP has implemented the customer's requirements for a sustainable, comprehensive maintenance strategy and created a strong basis for the future"

comments Andreas Oczko on the result.

These commitments are the result of constructive cooperation with existing customers, user groups, partners and SAP. They give customers the time they need to get to grips with the opportunities and possibilities of S/4.

Suite 7 care: 2 plus 3 years

SAP is extending the mainstream maintenance for Suite 7 core applications for two years without any changes to the contract or additional fees.

After this phase, SAP offers the option to choose: Existing customers who require support for their applications during longer conversion phases to S/4 can fall back on the Extended Maintenance offer, which is associated with a surcharge of two percentage points on the existing maintenance base and applies to all support offerings. Extended Maintenance is available for a further three years from 2028 to 2030.

Existing customers who do not opt for extended maintenance by the end of 2027 but wish to continue their software systems with SAP Business Suite 7 will automatically be switched to Customer Specific Maintenance. This includes the solution of already known problems with unchanged fees.

"All of the announcements are an important and, above all, the right move by SAP. It is an encouraging sign that SAP is listening to its customers and stakeholders and shows that SAP is doing everything necessary to meet the needs of customers in the digitalization process"

adds Andreas Oczko from the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG).

"The long-term commitments take the discussion away from time pressure and back to the essentials: How can the added value and opportunities that S/4 offers customers on the way to the digital future be used in the best possible way?"

Michael Kleinemeier, member of the Executive Board of SAP and responsible for SAP Digital Business Services, emphasizes:

"We are resolutely committed to the success of our customers. With the extended maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 and the long-term support for SAP S/4 Hana, we are underpinning this and offering our customers freedom of choice and flexibility as they move into the future. We thank our customers and especially our user groups for working closely with us to make this possible."

Digitization and S/4 strategy

Many companies still seem to be caught in a dilemma. The future clearly lies in digitization, but the current economic environment does not seem to be ready for it in many areas. Nevertheless, things are moving forward, as S/4 has emerged from the long shadow of the Business Suite.

Nevertheless, too many are still without a concrete S/4 strategy, which explains the maintenance extension of ERP/ECC 6.0 until 2027 and the extended maintenance until 2030. This means that SAP and DSAG must continue to intensify their educational work this year for the benefit of users.

The relevance of the Business Suite has naturally continued to decline, but Suite 7 with AnyDB and NetWeaver still dominates in terms of volume. For the first time in the past four years, "high and medium" investments in S/4 on-premises and public cloud predominate.

According to DSAG, a positive trend can also be seen with regard to the actual switch to S/4. Over the past three years, there has been a massive increase from three to ten percent in the number of companies using S/4 partially and occasionally.

"Many of those who were planning to make the switch have now obviously done so or are in the process of doing so," explains DSAG Chairman Marco Lenck.

The number of those who continue to rely on ERP/ECC 6.0 (Suite 7 with AnyDB and NetWeaver) remains constant at six percent compared to the previous year. No decision has yet been made by 13 percent, which is three percent less than last year.

"This means that just under 20 percent are still without an S/4 Hana strategy." says Lenck.

On the other hand, it can also be clearly stated: The development of the S/4 public cloud is still stagnating in the mid single-digit range.

"As DSAG, we conclude from this that SAP's existing customer base needs to be picked up much better in terms of the functionalities of cloud solutions in general"

summarizes Marco Lenck.

Time window and license model

According to Andreas Oczko, the time gained due to the 2027/2030 maintenance extension must be used immediately:

"The maintenance commitments for S/4 until at least 2040 and for Business Suite 7 until the end of 2030 are not a license to wait any longer. On the contrary, they must be the starting signal for companies to shed their last hesitation and begin the digital transformation."

It is also important to continue pursuing efforts to develop a vertical licensing model that takes existing licenses for the cloud into account. So far, this is still a DSAG vision, but the interest group will do everything in its power to make it a reality.

SAP has promised maintenance for S/4 until the end of 2040. At the same time, SAP will provide maintenance for ERP/ECC 6.0, Customer Relationship Management 7.0, Supply Chain Management 7.0 and Supplier Relationship Management 7.0 and Business Suite powered by Hana (SoH) until the end of 2027 and then offer optional extended maintenance until the end of 2030.

"Our customers are showing us that they want to move towards the future with SAP S/4 Hana. They expect SAP to make a long-term commitment to this platform"

says Christian Klein, Co-CEO of SAP.

"We know that our customers are carrying out extensive transformation projects and are using the solution's outstanding functions for this purpose. Our user groups confirm this; a survey by the Americas' SAP Users' Group showed no customer who is not planning to migrate to S/4 Hana.

In addition, the German-speaking User Group points out in its published survey that customer investments in S/4 Hana are increasing significantly.

As our customers also demand choice, SAP will provide additional flexibility to fully exploit the opportunities of S/4 Hana and accommodate the individual pace and complexity of customer projects."