You have seen some information about the SDN Subscriptions program and it is time to share a bit more and update you regarding its status.
Ramp-up
This week, we are starting to invite select individuals to purchase the “SAP NetWeaver, Development Subscription” package.
Why only select individuals? We simply want to make sure we are ready for the masses. This is the first volume business program we release and as it touches so many parts of the SAP back-end systems (we have quite a few of those…) and processes (and also a few of these…) we needed to make sure we are fully prepared. Think of it as our ramp-up program.
A new business process
We started thinking about the concept a while back and as SDN Insider: SDN Subscription Program will be launched soon mentioned, we asked top contributors, partners and customers to share their needs and thoughts with us.
Then, we became business process experts and defined a whole new business process for SAP that would allow for such volume business to integrate into our existing processes. SAP traditionally does business with legal entities (customers, partners,,,), so adding a consumer entity (individuals) into our processes impacted almost every area: tax, legal, IP, finance, security, support, product, licensing, logistics, etc. not to mention our back-end systems.
The internal support we received throughout this process was phenomenal and what started as a crazy idea by the community guys slowly penetrated into the mainstream and was announced last year at SAP TechEd Amsterdam.
Going global – soon…
The reason I’m sharing all this with you is to explain why some of you are going to be a little bit disappointed… Currently, we only roll out the program in US and Germany. Because of different legal, tax and other local codes, adding countries would be an ongoing process. It would be based on market demand (you asking us to expand to your country), localizing contracts, adopting local codes, and ensuring alignment with local SAP country organizations.
Sign-up to influence and reserve your seat
This is why we created and promoted the registration form.
This form will help us to figure out country expansion priorities as well as give the registrants in US and Germany the first shot at purchasing a subscription. We have a target range of subscriptions we plan for this year and we want to make sure people who register will get to purchase their subscription this year.
You can read more information and community feedback in blogs by my colleagues: SDN Subscription program - The motivation behind and The specified item was not found..
We are all excited about this opportunity to open up community access to the SAP NetWeaver platform and hope you find it useful.
The countdown continues…
