With many SAP customers still in the process of moving from their legacy systems to SAP cloud solutions ahead of maintenance deadlines for on-premises SAP ERP systems, SAP plans to offer its customers more time to make the switch — provided that they commit to SAP in the long term via RISE with SAP.
In the second quarter of 2025, SAP will introduce an offering called “SAP ERP, private edition, transition option,” a new cloud subscription service specifically intended to help large customers with complex installations to successfully transition from their legacy SAP ERP systems to SAP cloud ERP through the RISE program.
Contractually available in 2028, and to be active from 2031-2033, the offering will be centered on SAP ECC; while the eligible scope of products will be made clear later this year, it is not expected to include the full scope of SAP Business Suite 7 that is only available for subscription until the end of 2030.
Also including a set of dedicated services aimed at helping customers transform to SAP cloud ERP, the new cloud subscription “will also support business continuity with patches for security, legal and software issues,” according to Stefan Steinle, Executive Vice President and Head of Customer Support & Cloud Lifecycle Management at SAP.
As first reported by German business newspaper Handelsblatt and confirmed by SAP CEO Christian Klein late last month, during SAP’s Q4 and full-year earnings call and subsequent teleconference, this option will not only provide support for customers approaching 2030 and the end of extended maintenance for on-premises SAP ERP systems but also offer them protection against potential outages and other risks posed by third-party products, such as older Java versions and databases outside of SAP HANA, which will no longer be supported by their respective vendors.
Systems relevant to this transition option will need to be moved to SAP ERP, private edition, before the end of 2030, and additional preparations relevant to no-longer-supported third-party technology, such as older versions of Java, will be required. The SAP HANA database is the only supported database for this transition option.
“To clarify, we would like to emphasize that this is not a maintenance prolongation of SAP ERP. There are no changes for customers running on-premise SAP ERP systems after 2030,” added Steinle. “The new offering—SAP ERP, private edition, transition option—will come at an expanded fee in 2031-2033 compared to a comparable ERP cloud subscription before 2031. Naturally, due to the complexity in offering such a service, this is targeted to larger and complex systems.”