You’re probably not expecting much from Oracle or SAP this Christmas, but there are other support partners that go above and beyond their customers’ expectations. This is not just for Christmas, but all year round; we offer a gift that keeps on giving.
The year draws to a close, and December brings with it the traditional festivities and a sense of goodwill to all. But while we can depend on Christmas every year, it seems we can also depend on a lack of goodwill from mega-vendors like Oracle and SAP each year too.
Instead, these software giants continuously try to make as much money from their customers as they possibly can, while providing a very limited level of support. They are the Scrooges of the software industry if you like.
Fortunately, any organisation that isn’t expecting any gifts from the mega-vendors this year has the option of looking elsewhere.
Are you getting what you need from your vendor?
Oracle and SAP, historically, don’t consider what their customers need – if they did have Christmas lists, they’re not even checking it once.
Instead, the vendors use pushy sales tactics to move their customers towards upgrades and/or their respective Clouds, regardless of whether those customers had such a change in their roadmap.
Some organisations may already be struggling with the Oracle/SAP software they have now. Say, for example, there is one small piece of an organisation’s Oracle estate that runs in the background and it’s as old as the estate itself. It might be a database and/or an application that the organisation absolutely needs to keep things ticking along.
If this sounds familiar, you might consider moving just that small element of your estate over to our third-party support. We can take care of the support and maintenance for it and reduce the support fees. You can prioritise the management of your larger estate.
Start with us, and see where it takes you
When there are more presents left under the tree though, why would you open just one?
Once you’ve moved a database or an application over to us, you might think about moving across even more of your estate.
A number of our customers have followed this pattern. We start by supporting an aspect of their Oracle/SAP software, and our dedicated services – including response & resolution SLAs, and account management – inspires them to move more of their estates to a genuinely collaborative support partner.
But that remains your decision. Unlike the vendors, we won’t force you into anything.
Avoid Oracle and SAP’s tactics
Your Oracle/SAP product may be due to lose mainstream support. For instance, users of Oracle Database 11g will move onto Sustaining Support (the lowest support tier Oracle provides) in December 2020 – truly, a gift from the vendor that nobody asked for.
This is just one example. Many customers are already in Sustaining Support, and there’ll be plenty more support cut-off dates in the New Year. If you don’t want to upgrade to keep mainstream support (and don’t want to be unsupported either) then our support services can help you to realise this objective.
Equally, you can consider us if your organisation is under pressure to move to the Cloud. You could use third-party support to maintain your Oracle/SAP estate on its current versions and put off the Cloud migration until you’re ready and in a more stable position – even if it’s not until next Christmas! You could delay it for as long as you need; even indefinitely.
Unlike the vendors, we’re not here to take control of your roadmap and push you towards purchases in accordance with our own plans. Whatever your IT roadmap happens to include, we are here to help support it.
The gift of third-party support
What we offer to all organisations, not just for this Christmas but throughout the year, is a greatly improved support partner relationship.
And that particular present comes with multiple benefits:
- Flexibility – you make the decisions, not your vendor
- Dependability – we follow strict SLAs and ISO quality guidelines
- Financial stability – we can save organisations at least 50% on their support bills
We care about our customers; we want them to achieve their business goals, and ultimately, realise objectives that they wouldn’t have been able to reach if they’d stayed with Oracle/SAP.
So, this December, consider third-party support as the gift that keeps on giving.
If you’re considering moving your Oracle/SAP estate to third-party support, or you’d like to discuss this opportunity in further detail, we’d love to hear from you. Click the button below to get in touch.
