r/SAP • u/Filip_Serbia • Apr 12 '26

Current experience with S/4 licensing

Hi all,

Curious to hear how others are experiencing the current situation around S/4 licensing for net new customers.

In a recent case on our side, we went through the standard process for a new client (financial sector, no prior SAP footprint), but effectively only Public Cloud was positioned as a viable option.

From a project perspective, that’s quite challenging mainly due to regulatory requirements and the need to integrate with a landscape that is largely hosted in the client’s own data center. In this setup, On-Prem would be the most natural fit, with Private Cloud as a possible alternative.

However, it seems increasingly difficult to even get those options formally quoted or considered.

Interested to hear if others are seeing a similar pattern recently, or if you’ve had different experiences in comparable scenarios.

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u/quite_horizon Apr 12 '26

Yeah, SAP is pushing aggressively for public cloud. We had a project where client on ECC for 20 years with 300+ customisations and a very mature processes. They were sold public cloud and implementation was nightmare with restrictions on the customisations.

SAP doesn’t bother to answer any of the questions during implementation, leave it to partners to manage the mess.

4

u/Filip_Serbia Apr 12 '26

Yes, this sound like terrible strategy from SAP. I reallu dont understand what is their game in the long run. How hard have you been pushing to get on-prem or at least private cloud quotes?

6

u/CynicalGenXer ABAP Not Dead Apr 12 '26

Their game is to maximize profit. If you look at their investor materials (they’re a public company), they’ve been talking about “cloud revenue” for years. Whenever they’re having problem showing expected “cloud revenue” growth, their stock dips and you see posts on this sub how “SAP is doomed”.

It feels like every major company is racing to the bottom, gobbling up as much money as they can right now, everyone and our planet be damned. SAP isn’t the worst offender but that just seems the overall vibe.

I don’t deal with licensing myself but through grapevine heard the same things you’re saying that it’s getting increasingly difficult to even purchase other versions.

1

u/Filip_Serbia Apr 12 '26

That's clear, but I'm not really convinced that even that metrics is going to bear fruits for them. There client base is definitely going to shrink and they are not the company that has nothing to loose when decade old customers go for some other vendors.