Enterprise Software

Recession Not All Bad for Enterprise Software Users

(PC WORLD) - The global recession took a major toll on enterprise software vendors and their customers in 2009, leading to flagging license sales and tight IT budgets. But the economy also prompted a series of policy changes and concessions from vendors that could make users’ lives easier in the long run, especially if they become broader trends.

Here are some highlights:

SAP’s KPI agreement with SAP user groups

In April, SAP announced plans to work with user-group executives on a set of KPIs (key performance indicators) meant to prove the value of the vendor’s Enterprise Support service. The move followed months of protest from customers over the new service, which offers more features but carries a significant price increase.

Much work remains to be done on the project, which is in somewhat of a regrouping phase following the Nov. 18 resignation of its leader, German-speaking SAP Users Group (DSAG) board member Andreas Oczko and sponsor Otto Schell, also a DSAG member and vice chairman of SUGEN.

Oczko and Schell were unconvinced an initial set of KPI results were concrete enough to prove Enterprise Support will bring new benefits to SAP’s entire customer base, versus the companies taking part in the benchmarking project.

Read full story