Rimini Street, the leading independent provider of enterprise software support for SAP AG's (NYSE: SAP) Business Suite and BusinessObjects software and Oracle Corporation's (NYSE: ORCL) Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, Oracle Database, Oracle Middleware, Hyperion and Oracle Retail software, today announced continued year-over-year growth and client success for its SAP support product line. Annual revenue for Rimini Street support for SAP applications increased by 64.4% for the 12-month period ending 31 March 2014, compared to the prior 12 months, with more than 100 total clients to date who have switched from SAP to Rimini Street support. Beyond the significant cost savings achieved by switching to Rimini Street, including up to 90% on total support costs over a decade and an immediate 50% reduction of annual support fees, SAP licensees are choosing Rimini Street to enable their IT Innovation strategy.
Rimini Street helps SAP licensees drive innovation now
Successful IT landscapes are transforming from large, integrated single-vendor product suites to a hybrid IT landscape of core transaction "systems of record" integrated with best-of-breed software applications, and include a combination of on-premise and cloud application delivery models. Rimini Street provides comprehensive support for mission-critical SAP core transaction systems while enabling clients to flexibly and cost-effectively integrate cloud solutions into their current SAP landscape.
Southco adopts hybrid IT landscape with help from Rimini Street
When leading international manufacturer Southco switched from SAP to Rimini Street independent support in 2009, it immediately cut its second-highest IT expense in half. Since then, the company has completed successful rollouts in many countries as part of its strategic SAP global expansion efforts while using Rimini Street for support of its SAP ECC 6.0 system.
Southco redirected a portion of its substantial annual maintenance cost savings from using Rimini Street to purchase new licenses from Salesforce.com and SuccessFactors to address its global CRM and HCM infrastructure needs in the cloud. Rimini Street provided support for Southco's SAP applications through the transition and continued with support for the company's remaining extensive SAP landscape as part of its Rimini Street Cloud Services offering.
"With the independent support we received from Rimini Street, Southco was able to invest in cloud-based solutions like Salesforce.com and SuccessFactors while keeping our IT budget flat," said Patrik Larsson, Manager of SAP Global Support at Southco. "This has enabled Southco to adopt cloud solutions in conjunction with our existing SAP system in a hybrid model that best suits our business-driven innovation needs."
Color Spot expands SAP footprint while supported by Rimini Street
Color Spot Nurseries, a leading specialty horticulture producer and distributor, switched from SAP support to Rimini Street support for its SAP system in 2010. The company was able to improve its support, cut its annual vendor maintenance costs down from 20% to only nine percent of the total IT budget, and more than double their discretionary IT budget. Since then, Color Spot has purchased and deployed new SAP licences to keep up with its aggressive growth strategy and relied on Rimini Street for support of its expanding SAP footprint.
By choosing independent support, Color Spot realised additional benefits, including an assigned Primary Support Engineer (PSE) available 24x7x365 that eliminates the need for extra maintenance resources and headcount; responsive support with a guaranteed response time of 30 minutes or less; and premium-level services, including support for customisations at no additional cost. Adding to their significant cost savings, Color Spot also was able to avoid a costly and unnecessary forced upgrade for the sake of staying supported, as well as guaranteed support for a minimum of 15 years for existing releases without required upgrades.
"With independent support, Color Spot is in the driver's seat when it comes to our SAP software roadmap," said Eric Robinson, Color Spot CIO. "Beyond the substantial cost savings and great improvement in service levels, my team is now helping drive bottom line growth by redirecting our annual software maintenance cost savings and freed up resources towards critical new solutions for our business teams."
Rimini Street helps SAP licensees worldwide drive innovation
Rimini Street began providing independent support for SAP more than four years ago. Since then, more than 100 licensees, including Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies, across a wide range of industries and with operations in over 70 countries have switched from SAP to Rimini Street for independent support of their SAP systems. In addition to achieving significant savings, many SAP licensees who switched to Rimini Street Support have funded innovative projects and business initiatives that drive competitive edge, while gaining improved, premium service features, including support for customizations at no additional cost.
"More than 100 companies from around the world, ranging from Fortune 500 to midmarket companies, have already made the switch to Rimini Street for support of their complex, mission-critical SAP systems," said Seth Ravin, Rimini Street CEO. "And like Color Spot and Southco, these savvy companies are using Rimini Street independent support to maximise the value of their SAP software maintenance dollars and reallocate IT budgets and resources to fund innovation in strategic areas of the business."
