SAP has launched a new tool in the hope of giving user group members a greater understanding of their licensing terms.
The new Licensing Transparency Center has been driven by the SAP User Group Executive Network (SUGEN) and UK and Ireland User Group members now have access.
The tool allows members which are concerned about how they are licensed for indirect use to submit anonymised use cases or scenarios and get feedback from SAP.
The level of feedback from SAP will depend on the level of information provided by members and as submissions are anonymous, the responses from SAP will be generic.
Licensing has been a hot topic for SAP customers over the past few years, following the legal case between SAP and UK drinks giant Diageo.
A UK court ruled that SAP’s named-user licence fees apply, even when related applications that only offer users indirect, or read-only, access to SAP data. Diageo was told to pay £54,503,578 in licensing fees after its sales staff were running Salesforce applications on top of SAP data.
SAP announced it would be making changes relating to the indirect use of SAP systems at its Sapphire conference in Orlando earlier this year, including reassurances that customers won’t be hit with back licensing fees for using SAP data in third-party applications, and a wider modernisation of pricing policies.
However, many members still had questions regarding specific use cases, or how indirect use of SAP is being interpreted.
Paul Cooper, chairman of the UK & Ireland SAP User Group said: “The problem for most organisations is they have no idea whether they are correctly or incorrectly licensed.”
“Despite SAP’s assurances it won’t ask for back maintenance payments from organisations that are under licensed, members have understandably been reluctant to speak with their account managers.”
IDG News Service
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