The tiresome story with the SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party License

The location

The high time of SAP license measurement has come again. By the end of the year, SAP accountants must have met the sales targets set for them. A correspondingly nervous mood is therefore spreading again and if there is not really anything to be gained from a customer about new user licenses, as is not the case with most of our samQ customers, then they are happy to look at other areas where they can possibly be asked to pay.

SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party is often a good opportunity.

Where not yet claimed by SAP, this license is currently becoming acute again.

Years ago, DSAG agreed with SAP on a corresponding compromise.

But the content is not supposed to play a big role here, but what about this license, when switching to SAP S/4HANA Licence model?

How does SAP collect this NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party License?

There are two ways of licensing, the first one is charged by user, and if that is not possible or might be too expensive, the second one is simply to license by cores that access the SAP databases. SAP is happy to offer the core licensing variant, because with this variant you do not need to know who as a user needs this licensing. This is good for many customers, because they usually don't really know who is eligible for licensing.

But here it is basically good to know which licensing method is the more lucrative.

It makes a difference if you license 10 people with 450€ per user or a core with 30.000€, just because you don't know that it is only these 10 people or because you can't prove this.

With samQ these users are however identifiable and a transparent data basis is available at this point.

But now the good news regarding the SAP S/4HANA changeover. When switching to SAP S/4HANA in the course of a ContractCoversion, no SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party license is required anymore. However, if one chooses the cautious path of ProductConversion, the need for this license remains.

Please note that the SAP NetWeaver Foundation Third Party License has nothing to do with Digital Access, these are two different licenses and can also occur side by side.

The ContractConversion also offers even more advantages.

Now, however, a very important point, which is not being negotiated at the moment, but for which one should be prepared today for the future.

In the SAP PKL (price and condition list) it is clearly defined that the HANA database under S/4HANA may only be used for products sold by SAP and only.

What does this mean? Although you can return the SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Licenses when switching to SAP S/4HANA at a ContractConversion and you can buy the SAP S/4HANA products you need for this, but let's think about it.

The SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party Licensing was also part of PKL for a long time, but was only activated for licensing much later.

Now let's think a few years ahead, when the big wave of purchases regarding SAP S/4HANA is abating. Then new sources of income are needed.

Well, I guess we'll have to see what kind of communication there is with the SAP HANA database. Many third party products will migrate at once, nobody thinks about the PKL definition, most of them don't even know it and what happens later doesn't have to be of interest today.

But it should!

So what can you do?

It is relatively simple. If the conversion is carried out, one can contractually confirm the continued use of existing and later needed third party products without additional costs. With the SAP ContractConversion you should refer to the discontinuation of the SAP NetWeaver Foundation for Third Party License and that you are secured to use further required Third Party Products.

The problem is already solved.

By the way, the VOQUZ Labs Advisory Team can support you worldwide with this and many other small and large pitfalls during an SAP S/4HANA conversion, contract negotiations or even the introduction of SAP Digital Access. With samQ we can determine the required data in all SAP license areas and evaluate it with our many years of expertise.

An automatic optimization of user licenses is of course the basis of samQ!