Microsoft joins SAP, Oracle in setting sunset date for legacy ERP support

“Unlike on premises PeopleSoft systems, there is no hardware to purchase or maintain,” the FAQ noted. “Maintenance tasks, such as applying security and technical patches as well as maintaining the operating system and applying updates, are all performed by Oracle. This reduces overhead costs across IT resources, including hardware and services provided by system administrators.”

Carrot and stick

“The writing has been on the wall for CIOs for a few years now,” noted Scott Bickley, research practice lead at Info-Tech Research Group. “The message from ERP vendors is clear: get on our cloud now, or else. ‘Or else’ has taken different meanings, however, the most common approach taken by the Tier 1 providers is to present CIOs with a 1-2 punch.” 

“First, pull the legacy software support rug out from under their feet with a hard deadline a la SAP’s 2027 end of support for SAP ECC. Second, present incentives, including heavy discounts, migration credits, and flexible commercial terms to varying degrees, to pull enterprises into the cloud.  The carrot and stick approach is seeing mixed results. The latest data show that 2/3 of legacy SAP clients have not made the migration to S/4 HANA, as an example,” Bickley said.