Gartner suggests that customers are hesitant to switch to the new system due to the hefty investment and pressure involved. Bluntly, they don’t see enough return to justify the move.

Speaking about the large SAP customer base still running ECC, Gartner principal analyst Calum McDonald told The Register: “A lot of them feel like they’re being forced almost that way due to the pressure of the end of support, and they just can’t justify that extremely large investment for what they see, as of yet, as a limited return.”

SAP has spent almost a decade pleading with its customers to move to S4/HANA. It’s waxed lyrical about a better UI, real-time reporting and advanced analytics, and has even promised to support the tool until 2040.

Despite those efforts, a significant proportion of SAP’s ERP users – 60%, according to Gartner – are still running ECC. It expects that to fall to 40% in five years’ time, or 24% of SAP’s total customer base.

Unsurprisingly, many of those users prefer ECC’s perpetual licence model, compared to S4/HANA’s ongoing subscription.

“It is a step too far for most,” said McDonald. “For most customers, they don’t see it as a compelling reason to sacrifice all the investments that they made thus far.”

McDonald warned that hefty costs to migrate to S4/HANA could push users toward third-party support providers as a more cost-effective alternative to sticking with SAP’s relatively expensive support business.

That could leave SAP in a tight spot, which might give customers the leverage to demand a perpetual license for S4/HANA.

Gartner VP Bill Ryan said it would be a hard battle, but “SAP will grudgingly come to the table” if customers can make their case well.

In addition to its system switch drive, SAP has doubled down on a company-wide restructuring effort that would see it shut about 8,000 jobs. And just like we saw with Amazon and Meta, AI is said to be playing a key role in this new restructuring arrangement.