Digital Access: Excellent for SAP revenue

Cloud computing as a success model? Not so at SAP. At SAP in 2018, new cloud orders totaled 1.81 billion euros, up 25 percent. Cloud subscriptions increased by 30 percent and reached 10 billion euros.

Granted, the growth rates reported in SAP's financial statements are impressive, but most of SAP's cloud growth comes from acquired companies such as SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, Fieldglass, etc.

Let's assume that we agree with SAP's position that non-SAP systems accessing the Digital Core are "Digital Access" and thus subject to licensing, although this assumption is still being debated in the market (see Voice e. V.'s 2nd antitrust complaint).

Back in April 2018, SAP announced how to handle indirect access in the future, or "digital access" as SAP calls it from that point forward for current and future customers.

After the last SAP note (2644139) was not very helpful, SAP published two new notes at the beginning of this year: 2657803, Digital Access: central packages, and 2669358, Preparation for note 2657803 Based on the so-called SAP Passport (technical identifier), it is now possible to identify relatively precisely which documents were generated in SAP. The exclusion procedure applies: The rest is then generated indirectly.

I just came from SAMS 2019 in Berlin and I was asked a lot of questions there about digital access, I would like to briefly present the most important ones here.

If SAP is missing Digital Access by saying "this is directly generated, so everything else must be indirect", is there a blur from users accessing the system indirectly, but still having an SAP user?

You might think so, but it is not so! When changing the licensing from "User" to "Digital Access", a fundamental change of the licensing from Named-User to "Digital Documents" is made. Unfortunately, this is only done for the benefit of SAP.

In practice, this means: A user needs a user license to call transactions in SAP (e.g., Professional User) and the company needs additional licenses for all digital documents generated by the already licensed user.

If the licensed user accesses the system via a technical user (3rd party connection), then the company no longer needs a user license for this user, but only the licenses for the created documents. De facto, this results in a double licensing of users!

What happens if the number of documents is reduced? Can I reduce the number for which I also pay maintenance? No, unfortunately not. So it works the same way as with users and engines. You are always welcome to buy more, but you can't return it.

How do they handle voucher cancellations? If I cancel receipts, will I still be charged for them? Yes, you will also be charged for a cancellation. It is counted when the documents are created. (This will be an issue as I know some customers who regularly do bulk document cancellations as part of the standard process).

What actually happens to the platform users, NetWeaver Foundation License for Third Party Applications, etc. that were purchased for "indirect use"? The SAP platform licenses remain unaffected by the changeover. However, the company can exchange them for licenses for digital documents (preserving the value of the investment made). The NWFTPA licenses are not affected by the whole process.

So much for that. But we can still be curious, because in spring 2019 the third (and last?) license model for "indirect use" will be introduced: This is transaction-based and places every program access under license obligation that is triggered externally.

Pure data exchange is to become license-free. This means that the current document-based licensing model will probably be changed back to a transaction-based model. Let's wait and see.