On July 9, 2026, the European Commission accepted legally binding commitments from SAP addressing competition concerns involving maintenance and support for on-premises ERP software.
The commitments apply worldwide to current and future SAP customers for 10 years, with compliance overseen by an independent monitoring trustee.
For SAP customers, this is a meaningful change—not a prediction about what might happen. Organizations now have more flexibility to separate parts of their SAP environment, discontinue certain support costs and choose different support options.
The decision may also have implications beyond SAP. The European Commission focused on support practices that are common throughout the enterprise software market, including restrictions on terminating support for unused licenses, requirements to maintain uniform support across an estate and substantial costs for returning to vendor support.
That does not mean the SAP commitments automatically apply to Oracle, Microsoft, IBM or any other software vendor. It does mean organizations should take a closer look at whether their support agreements preserve customer choice or make it economically difficult to change providers, retire unused software or reduce support costs.
What Changed for SAP Customers?
SAP's commitments are intended to make it easier for on-premises customers to align maintenance and support with their actual business requirements.
Among the most consequential changes:
Greater Ability to Separate the SAP Landscape
SAP customers can divide eligible environments into separate Commercial Installations. For each installation, customers may be able to choose:
- Different levels of SAP support
- A third-party support provider
- No maintenance or support
The ability to separate installations is subject to SAP's applicable landscape-splitting requirements. Customers cannot simply remove an arbitrary group of licenses from support without first understanding how those licenses, systems and contractual rights are connected.
More Options for Unused Licenses
Customers may be able to separate unused licenses, commonly referred to as shelfware, and discontinue the associated maintenance.
This is significant because many organizations continue paying annual maintenance on software they no longer use. Shelfware often accumulates through acquisitions, divestitures, abandoned implementations, workforce changes, product migrations and years of incremental purchasing.
The new options could make it more practical to stop paying support on licenses that no longer deliver value.
Wider Access to Single-Metric Contracts
SAP will provide wider access to single-metric contracts, which calculate maintenance fees using an agreed business metric, such as employee count.
For qualifying organizations, this may offer an alternative to calculating support based on a complex collection of products and license quantities. However, customers should still evaluate whether the proposed metric accurately reflects their business and how future growth, restructuring or workforce changes could affect costs.
Clearer Minimum-Term Rules
SAP committed to clarify the initial contract periods during which support cannot be terminated. It will also stop restarting that minimum term each time a customer purchases an additional license.
Historically, incremental purchases could extend the period during which support could not be reduced or terminated. Eliminating that practice may give customers more predictable termination dates and greater control over future support decisions.
Lower Barriers to Returning to SAP Support
SAP will eliminate reinstatement fees for customers that return after operating without SAP support or using another provider.
Back-maintenance charges will be capped at the lower of:
- 50% of the support fees that would have been paid during the off-support period; or
- Six months of support fees.
Certain older products may also qualify for a complete waiver of back-maintenance charges.
This makes the decision to leave SAP support less permanent. Customers can more realistically evaluate third-party support or no-support scenarios without facing unlimited back-maintenance costs if they later return.
A Process for Addressing Problems
SAP will establish an internal mechanism for customers who believe the company is not honoring its commitments.
Because the commitments are legally binding and monitored by an independent trustee, customers have a clearer path for raising concerns about their implementation.
The Opportunity—and the Risk—for SAP Customers
The most obvious opportunity is financial. Organizations may be able to reduce maintenance costs by separating unused licenses, choosing different support models or moving part of an eligible environment to a third-party provider.
However, these new options do not make every support reduction straightforward or risk-free.
The ability to divide an SAP landscape does not answer:
- Which systems should be separated
- Which licenses are genuinely unused
- Whether dependencies exist between installations
- Whether historical licenses are still supporting active users or processes
- What security, regulatory, upgrade and operational requirements remain
- Whether third-party support is appropriate for a particular system
- How future migrations or implementations could affect the decision
A support reduction based on incomplete information can create new financial, operational and compliance risks.
For example, software may appear inactive while still supporting an integration, background process, affiliated entity or historical reporting requirement. A product believed to be shelfware may also provide rights needed by another part of the environment.
Before changing support, SAP customers should be able to answer four fundamental questions:
- What licenses and contractual rights do we own?
- What software, users, engines and systems are actually in use?
- Which licenses are genuinely inactive—and can that conclusion be supported with evidence?
- What operational, security, upgrade and compliance requirements will remain if support changes?
The business case should bring together contracts, order forms, historical metrics, system data, architecture plans and support requirements.
It should also compare multiple scenarios, including:
- Continuing full SAP support
- Maintaining selective SAP support
- Moving appropriate systems to third-party support
- Operating retired or stable systems without support
- Permanently retiring unused licenses
- Returning to SAP support later
- Migrating to S/4HANA or another platform
The least expensive support option is not necessarily the lowest-risk or most cost-effective long-term decision.
Why This Decision Matters Beyond SAP
The European Commission's decision applies specifically to SAP's maintenance and support practices for on-premises ERP software. It does not automatically change another software vendor's contracts, support policies or licensing rules.
But the decision may have broader significance.
The Commission focused on practices that are not unique to SAP: requiring customers to maintain support across large portions of their software estate, making it difficult to stop paying support on unused licenses, restricting the ability to use alternative support providers and imposing substantial costs when customers return to vendor support.
Similar commercial structures exist throughout the enterprise software market. The SAP commitments therefore establish an important regulatory example: support policies that limit customer choice or make it economically impractical to leave may attract competition scrutiny.
That does not mean every major software vendor will face the same outcome. Market position, contract language, product structure and applicable law will all matter.
It does mean organizations should examine how their existing support agreements affect their ability to:
- Discontinue support on unused software
- Separate active products from shelfware
- Choose different support models across the estate
- Move eligible products to an independent support provider
- Return to vendor support later
- Retain negotiated discounts when part of the estate changes
- Preserve perpetual rights during a cloud or subscription migration
- Reduce support after a divestiture, acquisition or business restructuring
Oracle deserves particular attention because the European Commission's earlier examination of the enterprise software support market reportedly included questions about both SAP and Oracle.
However, there is currently no publicly announced Oracle investigation or equivalent commitment decision. The SAP outcome should not be presented as proof that Oracle will be next.
The more useful takeaway is broader: software support terms are no longer simply a fixed cost of ownership that customers must accept without question. They are becoming part of a larger conversation about competition, customer choice and vendor lock-in.
What Software Customers Should Do Now
For SAP Customers
SAP customers should determine whether the new commitments apply to their specific products, agreements and environment.
The first step should not be immediately terminating support. It should be establishing an accurate and defensible baseline of entitlements, deployments and business requirements.
Organizations should:
- Inventory SAP contracts, order forms and support agreements.
- Reconcile purchased entitlements with current deployments and usage.
- Identify potential shelfware and validate that it is genuinely inactive.
- Map dependencies between products, systems and Commercial Installations.
- Determine which systems require continued vendor support.
- Compare SAP, third-party and no-support scenarios.
- Calculate the financial impact of leaving and potentially returning to SAP support.
- Document the final decision and preserve the supporting evidence.
Customers approaching a renewal, S/4HANA migration or other major SAP transaction may have an especially important opportunity to evaluate these options before signing a new agreement.
For Customers of Other Software Vendors
Customers should not assume the SAP commitments create new rights under another vendor's contract.
Instead, organizations should use the decision as a reason to review their existing agreements and identify similar restrictions.
Questions to ask include:
- Are we paying support on software that is no longer used?
- Can we terminate support for only part of the estate?
- Will reducing support cause the vendor to reprice the remaining products?
- Are different products or support lines contractually linked?
- Can we move some products to third-party support?
- What fees would apply if we returned to vendor support?
- Could a cloud migration, enterprise agreement or subscription conversion eliminate existing perpetual rights?
- Are we preserving sufficient records to support a future negotiation or termination request?
Even if no regulatory change occurs, understanding these provisions can improve renewal planning, support negotiations and software cost management.
Accurate Data Is What Makes the New Options Valuable
The SAP commitments create more customer choice, but they do not eliminate the need for accurate software asset management.
A contract may provide a right to reduce support, but the organization still needs reliable evidence showing which licenses can be removed without disrupting the business or creating a compliance gap.
That evidence must remain current.
Infrastructure changes, acquisitions, divestitures, new implementations, disaster recovery tests, system migrations and changes in user access can quickly make a previously accurate licensing position obsolete.
Organizations should therefore treat this as more than a one-time support optimization project. The long-term objective should be maintaining a defensible connection between:
- Contractual entitlements
- Actual deployments and usage
- Business requirements
- Support decisions
- Future technology plans
How LicenseFortress Can Help
LicenseFortress helps organizations turn contractual opportunities into evidence-based decisions.
As an independent software asset management provider—not a software reseller or third-party support vendor—LicenseFortress can evaluate available options without a financial incentive to steer customers toward a particular transaction or support provider.
For SAP customers, that can include:
- Establishing the entitlement and deployment baseline
- Identifying and validating potential shelfware
- Evaluating support-reduction scenarios
- Reviewing the risks associated with separating parts of the environment
- Preparing for discussions with SAP or alternative support providers
- Maintaining the supporting data as the environment changes
For customers of Oracle and other major software vendors, LicenseFortress can help review the current estate and associated agreements before a renewal, enterprise agreement, cloud migration or support change limits future options.
Our approach combines software licensing expertise, continuous software asset management and legal support through Beeman & Muchmore LLP.
The objective is not simply to lower a support invoice. It is to reduce unnecessary costs while preserving operational continuity, contractual rights and a defensible compliance position.
The Bottom Line
For SAP customers, the opportunity is immediate: new, legally binding commitments may provide options to separate support, address shelfware and reconsider how parts of the on-premises estate are maintained.
For customers of other enterprise software vendors, the decision is not a change to their contracts—but it is a reason to examine how support policies restrict choice, preserve vendor lock-in or require continued spending on unused software.
In both cases, the first move should be the same: know what you own, know what you use and understand the contractual and operational consequences before making a change.
New rights and negotiating leverage only create value when they are supported by accurate data and careful contract analysis.
