SAP's recent decision to revamp its support and maintenance offerings - a move that will mean higher fees for some customers - will help the software provider deal with increasingly complex, multi-vendor customer environments, SAP officials said.

"We're seeing an evolution of customer landscapes," said Mark Cordrey, vice president of SAP Active Global Support, in an interview with Managing Automation. "They are more complex, with many other third-party products being integrated into SAP."

SAP's Enterprise Support offering includes a new version of the company's Solution Manager and a new operational methodology, RUN SAP, which, among other things, allows customers and SAP to track down and fix problems that crop up when third-party products are integrated with SAP applications, Cordrey said. The new Enterprise Support offering includes tools and services that support root cause analysis of those problems.

Enterprise Support also includes service-level agreements (SLAs) for problem resolution and a 24-hour-per-day, seven-day-per-week support adviser service.

Enterprise Support, which will carry an annual price of 22% of net licenses fees, effectively replaces two other SAP support program offerings for new customers. SAP's Basic Support program, which had been priced at 17% of net license fees per year, and the Premium Support program, which had been priced at 22% of net license fees per year, will no longer be available to new customers. The support program changes apply to all SAP applications and third-party applications resold by SAP, Cordrey said.

The Premium Support program, available since 2006, included some of the same services - such as SLAs - now available in Enterprise Support. Premium Support, however, did not include troubleshooting third-party applications. The Basic Support program included problem resolution and other features, such as quality management and the SAP Solution Manager, but it did not include SLAs or a support adviser feature.

The Basic Support option, Cordrey noted, will continue to be available to current customers with Basic Support contracts. Those customers can renew Basic Support contracts at the 17% rate if they choose. "At this point, there is no announcement - and no plans" - to require existing customers to switch to Enterprise Support, Cordrey said.

In a recent report on the SAP support program changes, Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang recommended that prospective SAP customers "stick to their guns on 17% maintenance," predicting that many organizations won't fully use the new services made available under the Enterprise Support program.

Wang also noted that, with the new Enterprise Support program at 22%, SAP has now matched Oracle's rate on maintenance fees. "The elimination of the Basic Support option for new customers takes away a major competitive differentiator when compared to archrival Oracle," Wang wrote.

Cordrey declined to discuss Oracle's maintenance and support services pricing. SAP's new support options are "a compelling offering that best meets customer needs as we have seen today," he said.