Friday, January 27, 2006
SAP battles Oracle for software maintenance dollars - Jan. 27, 2006
SAP battles Oracle for software maintenance dollars - Jan. 27, 2006: " Buying software often isn't nearly as expensive as maintaining it. And that reality is making a long-building rivalry in the tech world ever bloodier.
SAP and Oracle are the two largest sellers of so-called enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, the complex applications large businesses use to run their operations. If you're a Fortune 500 company, you can't run your payroll or report earnings without it.
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Buying this software can cost millions of dollars. But in addition to the initial license fee, Oracle (Research) and SAP (Research) charge customers additional money every year for technical support, bug fixes, and software upgrades. These maintenance fees can cost more than a fifth of the initial software license. (SAP's maintenance fees are a bit lower than Oracle's, on average.)"
SAP and Oracle are the two largest sellers of so-called enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, the complex applications large businesses use to run their operations. If you're a Fortune 500 company, you can't run your payroll or report earnings without it.
More from Business 2.0
101 dumbest moments in business
The big guns' next target: eBay
Does Yahoo dig Digg?
Fastest Growing Tech Companies
Current Issue
Subscribe to Business2.0
Buying this software can cost millions of dollars. But in addition to the initial license fee, Oracle (Research) and SAP (Research) charge customers additional money every year for technical support, bug fixes, and software upgrades. These maintenance fees can cost more than a fifth of the initial software license. (SAP's maintenance fees are a bit lower than Oracle's, on average.)"
