Advisory Programs
Third party support. The 2026 decision framework.
Half price support is real. So is the reinstatement trap. Four questions separate the estates that should switch from the ones that should stay.
Half price support is real. So is the reinstatement trap. Four questions separate the estates that should switch from the ones that should stay.
Third party support saves 40 to 55 percent for the right estate and punishes the wrong one through reinstatement penalties. Four questions decide which estate you have.
Third party providers price at roughly half of vendor maintenance list, and the headline holds in practice for stable estates. Rimini Street and Spinnaker Support both anchor at 50 percent against Oracle Premier Support and SAP support offerings list pricing.
The real economics are wider than the fee. Add the deferred upgrade spend, subtract the lost vendor patches, and price the reinstatement risk explicitly.
Start from the vendor number. Oracle Premier Support and SAP Enterprise Support both bill maintenance at 22 percent of net license value each year. A third party contract at half of that resets the annual line to roughly 11 percent of license value.
Take an estate paying 1 million dollars a year in vendor maintenance. Cutting the rate in half frees roughly 500,000 dollars annually, or 2.5 million dollars across a five year hold. That gross figure is where most business cases stop, and where the mistake begins.
The 50 percent cut is a list to list comparison, before you account for what the fee stops buying. Two adjustments decide the net saving you can actually defend to finance.
First, self funded fixes. You now pay a provider or your own team for what the vendor bundled. Second, deferred upgrades. If you skip a version to avoid needing vendor support, that deferral carries a future cost.
Net the gross saving against both, and a durable 40 to 55 percent range is realistic for estates that pass the screen. Estates that fail it can watch the net collapse toward zero once a forced upgrade lands.
The decision reduces to four questions: version stability, upgrade horizon, audit posture, and cloud migration plans. Estates stable on all four are strong candidates; a hard no on any one of them defers the move.
Turn the four questions into a score. Rate each dimension zero, one, or two, where two is a clean pass. A total of six or higher points to a switch, four or five means wait, and below four means stay.
Candidate fit scoring matrix
| Dimension | Score 0 (stay) | Score 1 (caution) | Score 2 (switch) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Version stability | Frequent patching needed | Occasional fixes | Stable for 3 to 5 years |
| Upgrade horizon | Vendor upgrade inside 1 year | Possible upgrade in 2 to 3 years | No upgrade planned in 3 years |
| Audit posture | Known compliance gaps | Minor open questions | Clean, reconciled position |
| Cloud trajectory | Mid migration to vendor cloud | Cloud under evaluation | Estate retires or stays put |
The score is a discipline, not an oracle. Any single zero on audit posture or upgrade horizon should veto the move regardless of the total, because those two failures are the ones that reverse the business case.
Vendor support versus third party support, 2026
| Dimension | Vendor support | Third party support |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | 22 percent of license list, rising | Roughly 50 percent of vendor fee |
| Patches and upgrades | Included | Not included; custom fixes instead |
| Version coverage | Current versions per policy | Any version you run, indefinitely |
| Audit relationship | Support and sales aligned | Independent of the vendor |
| Return path | Not applicable | Reinstatement plus back maintenance penalties |
Three risks need explicit management: security patching, the audit that often follows the exit notice, and the reinstatement trap. Each has a concrete mitigation, and all three belong in the business case before signature.
Security gets virtual patching and compensating controls from the provider. The audit risk gets a license position review before the exit letter. Reinstatement gets priced as a contingency so leadership signs with eyes open.
Virtual patching, configuration hardening, and compensating controls vary materially between providers. Make the security methodology a scored selection criterion with named SLAs, not a slideware assurance.
A support exit removes the softest reason a vendor has to leave you alone: active maintenance revenue. Sales teams read a non renewal as disengagement, and a formal audit is the standard response.
Run a license position review before the exit letter leaves the building. Reconcile deployments against entitlements, and close any sub capacity, option, or named user gaps while you still control the timeline.
Do the cleanup on your schedule, not under an audit clock. An estate that would fail an audit today is not ready to exit support, because the penalty can erase several years of saving in one settlement.
The standard vendor line is that leaving official support is reckless, and the standard provider pitch is that it is free money. We disagree with both. In roughly 8 of the 25 evaluations Morten Andersen ran in 2024 to 2025, the right answer was to stay with the vendor, because an upgrade inside 3 years or a dirty license position made the exit math fail. In the other 17, savings of 40 to 55 percent held across the term with no operational regression. The buyer side move is to run the four question screen honestly and let the estate, not the sales pitch on either side, make the call.
Source: Redress Compliance advisory engagement file, 2024 to 2025.
Vendor support is priced for the estate you might become. Third party support is priced for the estate you actually are. Know which one you are buying for.
The headline is stability. In July 2025 Oracle and Rimini Street settled their fifteen year copyright dispute, removing the largest legal overhang on the third party support market. The model itself was never ruled unlawful.
What courts policed was how support gets delivered. The dispute turned on copying and cross use of Oracle software during support, not on a customer's right to buy independent support for licenses it owns.
The 2025 settlement is confidential, with no admission of liability by either side. Rimini agreed to wind down its PeopleSoft support line by July 31, 2028, so PeopleSoft customers on that provider need a transition plan well before the deadline.
The Ninth Circuit opinion of December 2024 had already narrowed the earlier injunction, and the settlement closed the remaining questions. For buyers, lawful third party support is now settled ground.
Diligence still belongs in your selection. Ask any provider how it develops fixes without vendor source code, how it isolates your environment, and how it documents that engineers do not cross use materials between customers.
Third party support is not one decision. The forfeited value differs by vendor, and the exit calculus shifts with each vendor's lifecycle policy and audit behavior.
Oracle's own fallback is Sustaining Support, which under the Lifetime Support Policy carries no new updates, security alerts, critical patch updates, or certifications with new products. You keep access to old fixes only.
That thin floor is exactly why third party support competes well on Oracle Database and E Business Suite. If the vendor tier gives you almost nothing new anyway, paying full maintenance for it is hard to defend.
SAP provides mainstream maintenance for Business Suite 7 through the end of 2027, with optional extended maintenance to the end of 2030, while S/4HANA carries an innovation commitment to 2040.
For an ECC estate not moving to S/4HANA before 2027, third party support can bridge the gap at lower cost than SAP extended maintenance. For an estate mid migration, staying on vendor support usually wins.
IBM bills Software Subscription and Support at roughly 20 percent of list, and lapsed coverage reinstates only with back fees plus an uplift. IBM estates on stable Passport Advantage products are common third party candidates.
The IBM nuance is bundling. Where support is tied to subscription entitlements or converged into a broader agreement, isolating the maintenance line you would actually drop takes careful contract reading.
Vendor by vendor third party support risk, 2026
| Vendor | Vendor fallback tier | Key 2026 date | Third party fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oracle | Sustaining Support, no new patches or certifications | Premier ends per release | Strong for stable Database and E Business Suite |
| SAP | Extended maintenance to end of 2030 | ECC mainstream ends 2027 | Strong if not migrating before 2027 |
| IBM | S and S reinstatement with uplift | Rolling by product | Good for stable Passport Advantage products |
The exit is cheap and the return is not, by design. Vendors price reinstatement so that leaving and coming back costs more than never leaving, which is the single number that should anchor the decision.
Reinstatement generally requires paying the maintenance you skipped during the lapse, plus a penalty uplift, plus a return to full list. A two year lapse can mean two years of back fees before you pay anything forward.
Price this as a contingency line in the business case. If any realistic scenario returns the estate within three years, discount the saving by the probability weighted cost of that return.
Time the exit to your support anniversary and give the sequence six to nine months. Rushing the license review is how clean estates create the exposure they were trying to avoid.
Third party support exit timeline
| Phase | Timing | Action | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | Month 0 | Run the four question score | Sourcing |
| License review | Months 1 to 3 | Reconcile entitlements, close gaps | SAM |
| Provider selection | Months 2 to 4 | Two proposals with scored SLAs | Sourcing |
| Exit notice | Months 5 to 6 | Serve at the support anniversary | Legal |
| Transition | Months 6 to 9 | Cutover and knowledge transfer | IT |
Sequence beats speed on every line of this timeline. The estates that regret the move almost always compressed the license review, served notice early, and then met the audit they had not prepared for.
For the Oracle specific view, read the Oracle third party support guide. For ongoing coverage across your vendor estate, see Vendor Shield and the Renewal Program.
Roughly 50 percent against vendor maintenance list, and in our 2024 to 2025 evaluations realized savings of 40 to 55 percent held across the contract term for estates that passed the four question screen.
Vendor patches, version upgrades, and certification updates from the day coverage lapses. Third party providers compensate with custom fixes and virtual patching, but the vendor roadmap is closed to you.
Yes, at a price designed to deter it. Reinstatement typically requires back maintenance for the lapsed period plus penalties, which is why the return scenario must be priced into the original business case.
Often enough to plan for it. A support exit signals disengagement, and we treat a license position review as a mandatory step before any exit letter is sent.
Stable ERP and database estates on mature releases, systems with a 2 to 6 year sunset horizon, and estates with no vendor dependent upgrade inside 3 years. Estates failing any screen question should stay, for now.
Yes. Courts have policed how providers deliver support, not a customer's right to buy independent support for licenses it owns. The 2025 Oracle and Rimini Street settlement left the model intact.
It can bridge an ECC estate that will not reach S/4HANA before mainstream maintenance ends in 2027. That bridge usually costs less than SAP extended maintenance, which runs to the end of 2030.
It is Oracle's lowest tier, with no new patches, security alerts, or certifications with new products. Because it delivers so little, third party support often compares well against paying full Oracle maintenance.
Plan six to nine months from screen to cutover, timed to your support anniversary. Front load the license position review into the first three months before any exit notice is served.
Virtual patching, configuration hardening, and compensating controls in place of vendor patches. Make the security method a scored, SLA backed selection criterion rather than a slideware promise.
The screening model, provider SLA comparison framework, audit preparation steps, and the reinstatement contingency pricing method.
Used across more than five hundred enterprise engagements. Independent. Buyer side. Built for procurement leaders running the next renewal cycle.
