The answer to SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications

For several months now, SAP has been scaring its existing customers with sometimes enormous relicensing. This time, however, it is not the results of a proper system measurement, on the basis of which new (limited) professional users are negotiated, but SAP's request is called "NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications" and has the order number 7015924 (core based) and 7009523 (user based) in the PKL (SAP price and conditions list).

The PKL metric "cores" can be expensive, because SAP charges a one-time fee of 30,000 euros per core. For a small Xeon server like the Fujitsu Primergy TX300 S6 with two CPUs and 12 cores, the license end sum would be 360,000 euros.

However, the user license model is not much cheaper, because the minimum purchase quantity is 120 blocks - as 120 times 450 Euro is license end sum 54,000 Euro.

And SAP does not calculate according to the "indirect users" actually present; as with Interactive Forms by Adobe, all named users must always be licensed. For an ERP system with 1000 users, NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Applications costs 450,000 euros.

Do you have to pay for it?

The clear answer is no. Naturally, SAP is free to ask its existing customers to pay at any time, but it must be questioned whether this covetousness also has a legal basis.

The DSAG user association and experts are predominantly of the opinion that there are no grounds for doing so. To date, no cases are known where SAP has succeeded in proving chargeable indirect use.

Thus, the first advice given by DSAG board members in a confidential discussion is to reject SAP's request and insist on a written justification and proof of indirect use.

Time factor:

Many ERP systems were customized and licensed when there was no or only a vague definition of indirect use. PKL and GTC documents adapted later cannot be invoked retroactively.

Experts from DSAG point to the fact that tolerating and accepting possible indirect use for years can also be understood as consent by SAP.

The sudden change of mind cannot lead to license back payments. Only a few years ago, SAP itself motivated its existing customers to develop and use add-ons, and at that time there was never any talk of indirect use.

I asked DSAG CEO Marco Lenck whether there are any existing customers who have reserved a budget cushion for the license backlog. He answered in the negative. Lenck said that he himself, as a CIO, would not do such a thing, because first SAP should clearly prove indirect use and clarify why this is now subject to a charge.

Asked why there cannot be a binding legal opinion on this and whether DSAG could not commission such an opinion, Lenck said that the variety of indirect types of use hardly allows a generally valid answer.

Indirect use, he said, covers a wide spectrum from "not worth mentioning" to "no longer legitimate use of the software." He fears it could get even more complex. Many tools from SAP and SAP partners can be used to create ERP interfaces and mobile computing applications that, in the end, always (have to) access SAP data and databases and functions.

Indirect use will always remain a gray area. Summing up my conversation with the DSAG Executive Board: Indirect use is not a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of SAP's existing customers, but the topic probably cannot be answered in its entirety and in general terms either.

If the worst comes to the worst, every existing customer will have to talk to SAP individually and, if necessary, get help from the user association.

In any case, the DSAG board members have promised their support - either directly or via the DSAG working group on licenses.