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Thank you, SAP! There are still a few questions...

After more than 25 years of SAP ERP/ECC, it's time to say thank you. SAP's success is also the success of the SAP community. The ERP provider has done many things right. No reason not to ask a question in the future.
Guido Schneider, Aspera
November 7, 2019
Licenses
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This text has been automatically translated from German to English.

It is estimated that the SAP community generated approximately $300 billion in revenue in 2018. As a result, many organizations and consultants have prospered in recent years.

For this reason, I would like to thank SAP - also on behalf of the more than 18,000 official partners. Not only shareholders, founders and employees, but above all the partner network benefit from a healthy and stable SAP.

SAP develops good solutions. For example, SAP customers build more than 95,000 cars a day or manufacture 82 percent of all medical devices produced worldwide. The solutions come at a price.

SAP software is not cheap. Like any other creator, SAP has the right to be paid appropriately for intellectual property. Copyright Law, §11 General, second sentence:

"It serves at the same time to secure adequate remuneration for the use of the work."

The only question is what is meant by "reasonable remuneration". Double licensing is clearly not one of them.

NetWeaver OpenHub: After purchasing Business Warehouse (BW), SAP charges an additional fee for data export if the data is further viewed in a non-SAP analytics tool.

SAP explains this additional requirement by saying that its intellectual property lies in the data structure, which is "indirectly used". The term "use" is not only interpreted "generously" by SAP, but is also not applied in all cases in accordance with the Copyright Act (for example, §69c).

The list price for NetWeaver OpenHub is 250,000 euros. Even though very few people have paid this price, they have probably not received any additional value from SAP.

Note: There is also SAP OpenHub for S/4 Hana, which means that also in the future SAP wants to stick to this additional fee. Why does SAP have to charge this fee? Wasn't the use of the software, including the unrestricted use of the data, already adequately remunerated with the purchase of the BW license?

Indirect use: When ERP Central Component (ECC) was launched, there was no mention of indirect use. There was also nothing to be found in the GTCs and the price and conditions list (PKL).

Additional SAP licenses for the partner solutions - with a few exceptions - did not have to be paid to SAP from 1993 to 2014. However, since around 2011, the GTCs have stated that direct and indirect access are subject to licensing.

There was nothing about this in the PKL. Today, the PKL contains the so-called "SAP Platform User", who is authorized to access and use the SAP software via interfaces.

Concrete example: An automotive manufacturer uses SAP software and is sufficiently licensed. A supplier also uses SAP and is also sufficiently licensed. Both decide to connect their SAP systems and exchange data.

Under the new "Digital Access" pricing model, the person for whom documents are generated in the SAP system would now have to license them additionally. Under the old pricing model, the SAP Platform User license would have to be purchased additionally for each user. Isn't this a kind of double licensing?

Similarly, it was not explained to customers at the time that they should pay for additional licenses for the use of self-developed code in addition to the SAP Developer licenses.

"SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications." is the name of the license that customers should buy when the code accesses information in the SAP tables. This is to grant the right to run non-SAP applications on the NetWaever runtime environment in addition to the NetWeaver Foundation runtime usage right.

In other words, the customer should pay for the use of the runtime environment in addition to the purchased runtime usage rights and the SAP Developer license. Wouldn't it be "reasonable" if SAP existing customers only pay once for the use of the runtime environment? Thank you, dear SAP, for everything! But we think: If you pay once, you pay enough.

https://e3mag.com/partners/aspera-gmbh/

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Guido Schneider, Aspera

Guido Schneider was an SAP licensing expert at Aspera until June 2020.


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Working on the SAP basis is crucial for successful S/4 conversion. 

This gives the Competence Center strategic importance for existing SAP customers. Regardless of the S/4 Hana operating model, topics such as Automation, Monitoring, Security, Application Lifecycle Management and Data Management the basis for S/4 operations.

For the second time, E3 magazine is organizing a summit for the SAP community in Salzburg to provide comprehensive information on all aspects of S/4 Hana groundwork.

Venue

More information will follow shortly.

Event date

Wednesday, May 21, and
Thursday, May 22, 2025

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Available until Friday, January 24, 2025
EUR 390 excl. VAT

Regular ticket

EUR 590 excl. VAT

Venue

Hotel Hilton Heidelberg
Kurfürstenanlage 1
D-69115 Heidelberg

Event date

Wednesday, March 5, and
Thursday, March 6, 2025

Tickets

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Early Bird Ticket

Available until December 20, 2024

EUR 390 excl. VAT
The event is organized by the E3 magazine of the publishing house B4Bmedia.net AG. The presentations will be accompanied by an exhibition of selected SAP partners. The ticket price includes attendance at all presentations of the Steampunk and BTP Summit 2025, a visit to the exhibition area, participation in the evening event and catering during the official program. The lecture program and the list of exhibitors and sponsors (SAP partners) will be published on this website in due course.