SAP is hitting new customers with a 5.5% support fee hike scheduled to go for contracts closed on or after July 15, 2013. The increased revenue will go towards “improving existing software and ensuring support quality.” SAP isn’t the only one doing this, but you have to question whether or not they will alienate their customer base.
While innovation and feature sets are always supported, this may be a move to push customers to cloud versions of SAP’s apps. SAP should be careful not to push customers to other cloud offerings, byt continually increasing support fees for those who use their software! But they aren’t the only one – Microsoft and Oracle have both increased support fees in the last year.