Rimini Street extends SAP support until 2040

With SAP set to end mainstream support for its ECC 6.0 software in just over two years, third-party support provider Rimini Street is offering enterprises a way to stick with the ageing ERP application until 2040.

According to Gartner, only around 39 percent (14,000 out of 35,000) of ECC customers had migrated to S/4HANA by the end of 2024, and 17,000 could still be using the ageing software by the 2027 deadline. Even when SAP ends extended support in 2030, 13,000 companies could still be working with the old ERP system, the analysts forecast, with the cost and complexity of migration cited as the main reasons why so many are hesitant to switch to S/4HANA.

If Rimini Street has its way, though, these reluctant enterprises have ten more years to make up their minds: The enterprise software support provider has announced that it will extend full support for all SAP ECC 6.0 and S/4HANA releases until 2040, for both existing and new customers.

Migration waiver

With this announcement, the Las Vegas-based company is positioning itself as an alternative for SAP customers who want to operate their current ECC 6.0 or S/4HANA systems beyond the official SAP maintenance periods. Not only can they avoid the costs and risks of migrating to S/4HANA on RISE, but they can also achieve annual maintenance savings of up to 90 percent, Rimini Street promises.

“There is no need for SAP licensees to undergo major costs, risks and disruption to their operations for a software migration that many believe is unnecessary and low value, compared to the value of investing in new technologies like enterprise AI, workflow and task automation — that can bring immediate value to the organization,” said Seth Ravin, CEO of Rimini Street. “Already, Rimini Street clients have saved $9 billion dollars in IT operating costs and are self-funding innovation to propel them forward without being slowed down with unnecessary, costly and risky upgrades, migrations and replatforming,” he said.

The company introduced Rimini Support for SAP over 15 years ago and says it supports hundreds of SAP ECC 6.0 and S/4HANA clients.

The end of ERP as we know it?

“We predict the future of ERP will forever be changed in the next five to ten years, with ERP software replaced by new, faster and more flexible agentic ERP processes that we are already deploying for clients,” continues Ravin. The Rimini Street CEO was referring to a partnership that the company entered into with ServiceNow in October 2025. The new solution resulting from this partnership combines ServiceNow’s Now platform with Rimini Support and Rimini Manage.

“Twentieth-century systems have created a chaos of complexity that hinders 21st-century innovation,” said Bill McDermott, ServiceNow CEO and former SAP CEO, at the time. “ServiceNow’s partnership with Rimini Street gives clients a unified, intelligent platform to maximize their existing software investments for a faster path to transformation.”

SAP’s mainstream maintenance for ECC 6.0 runs until 2027, but for Enhancement Packages 0 through 5, the end date is December 31, 2025. Similarly, for SAP S/4HANA, mainstream maintenance has already expired or will end in 2025, 2026 or 2027, depending on the version. SAP’s extended maintenance is available for some versions of ECC 6.0 and S/4HANA, but not for all — and is accompanied by a significant increase in costs.