SAP AG has announced that customers who migrate services from on-premise to cloud will no longer have to pay licenses or maintenance fees for the affected services.
Companies using the enterprise resource planning (ERP) firm’s on-premise solutions can now reallocate elements to the cloud, replacing the maintenance fees with a cloud subscription.
By extending their services into the cloud they can also take advantage of software from SAP companies such as Ariba.
The move has been welcomed by the UK & Ireland SAP User Group, which has been pushing for such an incentive for businesses to pick a hybrid strategy.
Philip Adams, chairman of the group, said: "It’s really good to see that SAP has taken on board the feedback from SUGEN and the UK & Ireland SAP User Group. Back at our annual conference in November we highlighted that our members felt SAP was not making it attractive enough for on-premise customers to migrate to cloud solutions.
"In fact, the vast majority felt they should be offered discounts or the ability to trade-in on-premise licenses for cloud solutions. Over the last six to nine months we’ve been actively engaged with SAP on a number of issues related to licensing, maintenance and cloud.
"This is one of the first tangible changes it has made to addressing customer concerns.
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"SAP is clearly demonstrating that it is listening to customers who simply could not justify investments in cloud when they had already spent significant sums purchasing on-premise software.
"They are really taking a lead by allowing customers to partially terminate their on-premise software licenses and therefore the associated maintenance costs. Furthermore it appears SAP will be offering discounts on subscription fees depending on the level of past on-premise, and future cloud, investment."
However, SAP AG confirmed to CBR that there is no retroactive element in the offer for customers who already use both cloud and on-premise.
But a spokeswoman said customers already using both services are eligible if they wish to end on-premise licenses and maintenance fees and expand into the cloud.
