SAP Offers Last-Minute Reprieve for Customers Delaying S/4HANA Transition
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SAP is providing a critical lifeline to customers facing delays in transitioning away from Compatibility Packs for their on-premises S/4HANA deployments. While usage rights were previously slated to expire on December 31, 2025, for the majority of users, the German software giant has announced a final five-month transition period to allow those still utilizing the packs to move to native capabilities.
The Compatibility Packs were initially introduced in 2015 to enable customers migrating to S/4HANA to retain functionality from their legacy SAP ECC (ERP Central Component) systems that was not immediately available in the initial S/4HANA release or would have been time-consuming to migrate. According to the company, the missing functionality was included in the 2023 version of S/4HANA. A document published in 2022 and updated in 2025 indicated that, based on this premise, support and usage rights for the Compatibility Packs would expire at the end of 2025, unless customers had signed a Rise with SAP or SAP Cloud ERP agreement and were actively migrating to the cloud.
However, recognizing that several customers required additional time to complete their migrations, SAP extended the deadline to the end of May 2026, as confirmed by a company spokesperson via email. SAP will also offer what it terms “customized programs” designed to accelerate the shift to cloud products that replace the functions of the Compatibility Packs.
“We are offering programs as transformation incentives and cloud extension policies, along with practical support from enterprise architects, AI-powered tools, and guidance on best practices for public cloud migrations,” the spokesperson stated. “We also provide dedicated services to identify which Compatibility Pack functions a customer is using and help them replace or migrate them to recommended cloud solutions, ensuring a smooth transition without disrupting business operations.”
No Respite for Those Who Haven’t Started
It’s crucial to note that the additional five months are only available to customers who have already begun their transition. “We have recently discovered customers who haven’t even started… nothing has changed regarding their options past the deadline,” the spokesperson emphasized.
Industry analysts agree that the extension is sensible, though they view the move from different angles.
Scott Bickley, an advisor at Info-Tech Research Group, highlighted that “SAP has a multitude of customers in process of migrating from ECC/R3 to S/4 HANA, and those customers continue to leverage the functionality offered by the various Compatibility Packs. Arbitrarily cutting support and usage rights to these customers would be a significant blow, potentially causing catastrophic disruptions to their internal and customer-facing business processes.”
Mike Tucciarone, a vice president and analyst at Gartner, sees the extension as a pragmatic step by SAP that “reflects the real obstacles organizations are facing today.” Gartner’s data indicates that issues with the Compatibility Packs arose in less than 1% of the thousands of customer calls received by analysts in 2025, “but for that 1%, it’s a serious problem. This extension acknowledges that these migrations are substantial undertakings, especially as organizations today focus on driving efficiency and cost optimization.”
However, Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, cautions against interpreting this as a policy shift. In his view, “this is a strictly delimited grace period for customers who have already initiated their remediation efforts. That’s all. SAP has chosen a path that appears flexible, but is actually very selective. It’s a transition period, not a reprieve.”
Temporary Scaffolding
The German tech giant is strategically using the delay to manage customer resistance without compromising its long-term roadmap, Gogia contends. He believes that “the short duration of the extension makes that clear. Five months isn’t enough to change course. It’s about giving those already in motion the opportunity to land safely, while reinforcing the message that the Compatibility Packs were always intended as temporary scaffolding.”
Gogia is also observing that IT directors are realizing their organizations remain at risk, despite believing they had successfully completed their transitions. “Many assumed they were safe after migration, only to discover that Compatibility Pack elements were still active silently, sometimes flagged during internal readiness checks, sometimes triggered by SAP license audits, and sometimes revealed only during upgrade planning. The risk here is technical, financial, operational, and reputational. Once support ends, there’s nowhere to hide. SAP has even left the door open to technically disable CP functionality in future S/4 releases, moving this from a compliance risk to a full business interruption.”
Bickley also points to potential compliance issues. “With the current expiration date of 2025, companies continuing to use the Compatibility Packs would technically be in violation of their SAP software usage rights,” he noted, adding that “this extension provides relief for this subset of customers as they work with SAP to migrate off these solutions.”
However, Gogia observes a recurring theme in this situation: urgency. He stated, “The extension hasn’t reduced expectations, it’s clarified them. Companies now have very little time to demonstrate progress or exposure. The smartest are turning this into a structured program with timelines, responsibilities, and a budget. Those who don’t risk being caught off guard, not just by SAP, but by their own shareholders, who will ask why the risk wasn’t addressed while there was still time.”
