SAP Starts customer loyalty programs in Germany

In a few days, SAP will send out letters to all those German customers who have remained on standard support. Recent surveys indicated that this is over 60% of the installed base. In this letter, SAP will enforce a hitherto never used clause in their maintenance agreement. This clause allows for a salary-index based increase of maintenance.
SAP plans to apply this clause retroactively. This means: old agreements will see a higher increase. Hence, loyalty is not rewarded – rather, it is penalized — a first in the industry. Another rather bizarre effect is that customers will pay different percentages – even though they have purchased the same product.
The only comfort is that SAP will cap the increase to prevent standard maintenance from getting more expensive than Enterprise Support.
The retroactive application of the index-based increase is not without legal issues. The jury is still out on whether it will pass and I strongly advise customers to contest this practice.
When will SAP become smart enough to understand that molesting customers is not to their advantage? Well, in a recent article InformationWeek’s Bob Evans ventures an interesting speculation: http://tiny.cc/wsrlo