Oracle E-Business Suite Third-Party Support
Oracle’s E-Business Suite (EBS) customers are facing a fork in the road: Oracle has made it clear that staying on older EBS releases comes at a price. Oracle EBS 12.1 reached its support deadline, and Oracle’s strategy is essentially “upgrade to 12.2 or move to Fusion Cloud.”
This creates a costly upgrade trap for CIOs and IT leaders. However, a smart alternative is emerging: third-party support for Oracle E-Business Suite. For guidance, review our overview of Oracle third-party support.
In this guide, we’ll explore how Oracle EBS third-party support allows you to avoid forced upgrades, save dramatically on support costs, and regain control of your ERP roadmap.
We’ll cover the financial impact, risk, and security considerations, as well as when third-party support makes sense for your business.
The Oracle Upgrade Trap — 12.1 to 12.2 or Fusion Cloud
Oracle’s support policy has put many EBS customers in a difficult position. With Oracle ending Premier Support for EBS 12.1 (as of late 2021), enterprises on release 12.1 are officially out of full support. Oracle did not offer the usual lengthy Extended Support period in this case; instead, customers had to either upgrade to EBS 12.2 or migrate to Oracle Fusion Cloud to remain under Oracle’s Premier Support umbrella.
If you do nothing, your EBS 12.1 environment falls into “Sustaining Support,” a minimal support level that provides no new patches, security updates, or regulatory fixes (yet you still pay the same hefty fees, often with annual increases). In short, Oracle’s message is: upgrade or lose support.
For many organizations, this ultimatum is a classic upgrade trap. Upgrading from EBS 12.1 to 12.2 is a significant project, involving reapplying customizations, testing every module, potentially updating hardware or databases, and requiring a substantial investment of time and money. It’s not a simple patch; it’s essentially a mini reimplementation of your ERP. Such an upgrade can cost millions of dollars and many months of effort. What’s the ROI?
Oracle EBS 12.2 does bring a “Continuous Innovation” model (no future 12.3, but ongoing updates) and promises Premier Support through at least 2033. However, the functional improvements from 12.1 to 12.2 are modest for most businesses.
Many CIOs find that their current EBS 12.1 already meets the majority of business needs, so spending large sums on an upgrade delivers little new value beyond staying in Oracle’s good graces.
The other path Oracle promotes is Fusion Cloud, Oracle’s next-generation SaaS ERP. This isn’t an upgrade of EBS at all – it’s a migration to an entirely new platform. Moving to Oracle Fusion Cloud can be as disruptive as switching to a different vendor, as you must rebuild configurations, adapt or replace customizations, retrain users, and often adjust business processes to fit the new system.
It’s a multi-year reimplementation project with substantial subscription costs and potential business disruption. While Oracle touts the benefits of the cloud, many EBS customers are understandably reluctant to rip and replace a working system just to stay supported, especially if they are not convinced the cloud will deliver commensurate value or if they’re simply not ready for such a change.
All of this adds up to financial and operational pressure. Oracle’s strategy is designed to drive customers into costly decisions that primarily benefit Oracle’s sales goals (license fees from upgrades or cloud subscriptions) – a strategy that may not align with the customer’s own IT strategy or budget reality.
This “upgrade or migrate” mandate can feel like a no-win scenario for EBS clients who are happy with their current software. It’s no surprise that many organizations have begun searching for an alternative to the Oracle EBS upgrade, seeking to avoid the forced march.
Read who they are – Top Oracle Third-Party Support Providers in 2025
How Third-Party Support Extends the Life of EBS
Thankfully, EBS customers do have another option: independent third-party support. Third-party Oracle EBS support is provided by specialized firms (for example, Rimini Street, Spinnaker Support, Support Revolution, among others) that are not affiliated with Oracle.
These providers step into Oracle’s shoes to deliver software support and maintenance for your licensed Oracle E-Business Suite, without requiring any upgrades.
In essence, you continue to run your EBS 12.1 (or 12.2, or even older releases like 11i), and a third-party support partner ensures you receive the help you need to keep that system running smoothly for as long as you require.
What does third-party EBS support include? Practically everything you would expect from Oracle (and in some cases more):
- Break-Fix Issue Resolution: If an issue occurs in your EBS system, your third-party support team will troubleshoot and provide a fix or workaround, just as Oracle would for a supported release.
- Security Patches: Although Oracle isn’t providing new security updates for 12.1, third-party providers continue to develop their security solutions. They proactively research vulnerabilities and deliver patches or mitigation instructions (sometimes referred to as “virtual patches”) to ensure your EBS environment remains secure against emerging threats.
- Tax, Legal, and Regulatory Updates: This is critical for ERP. Third-party support encompasses updates for changes in tax rates, payroll regulations, financial reporting requirements, and other compliance needs. For example, suppose a new VAT law or labor tax rule comes into effect. In that case, your support provider will supply the necessary EBS patch or guidance to keep you compliant, even though Oracle has discontinued support for 12.1.
- Ongoing Guidance and Help Desk: You get a support portal and team to answer usage questions, assist with configuration issues, and provide general guidance, much like Oracle’s support – but often with more personalized service (since third-party firms pride themselves on customer service).
- Support for Customizations: A key difference – third-party support will troubleshoot and provide assistance with your custom code and integrations. Oracle’s support historically refuses to touch customizations (they ask you to reproduce issues on vanilla software), but independent providers include customizations in scope. Suppose your EBS has numerous custom reports, extensions, or integrations with other systems. In that case, the third-party team will assist in resolving issues across the entire environment, not just the base Oracle code. This is a huge benefit for heavily tailored EBS installations.
- No Version Sunset: Perhaps most importantly, you are not forced to upgrade. A good third-party support provider will continue to support EBS 12.1 (or whatever version you run) indefinitely. There’s no looming end-of-support date – you decide when to eventually transition to a new system. They even support versions long past Oracle’s cutoff (there are companies today running EBS 11i or other legacy releases with third-party support, still getting necessary patches!). This means you can extend the life of your stable EBS environment for 5, 10, or more years without being subject to Oracle-imposed deadlines.
In short, third-party support allows you to avoid the Oracle EBS 12.1 to 12.2 upgrade entirely. You can stay on the version that works for you, skipping the expensive upgrade projects and disruptive migrations.
Your business users continue to use the familiar system, your customizations remain intact, and you still receive support and updates to keep things running smoothly. It’s a way to opt out of Oracle’s upgrade cycle and maintain full support on your terms.
It’s worth noting that this approach is not unproven or niche. Thousands of Oracle customers globally have switched to independent support providers for EBS and other Oracle products. Industry analysts now recognize third-party support as a mainstream alternative.
The market leader, Rimini Street, for example, has been around for over 15 years and supports hundreds of Oracle EBS clients, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and mid-sized firms alike.
These organizations have safely extended the life of EBS 12.1 and even earlier releases through third-party support, gaining breathing room to decide their future ERP strategy without pressure from Oracle.
Also read about Oracle Database Third-Party Support.
The Financial Impact of Third-Party Support
One of the most compelling reasons enterprises turn to third-party support is the dramatic cost savings. Oracle’s annual support fees are notoriously steep – typically around 22% of the original license price, charged every year.
For a large EBS deployment, this can amount to millions of dollars per year just to obtain routine support and updates.
And as mentioned, if you stay with Oracle past Premier Support, you might pay even more (Oracle often institutes annual increases of 3-4% and offers less service in return). It’s a substantial sum that many CFOs question in terms of the value it delivers.
By switching to third-party support, companies immediately cut those support fees by 50% or more. Independent support providers generally charge roughly half of Oracle’s fee for equivalent (or better) support coverage.
That means if you were paying $1M per year to Oracle, you might pay about $500K with a third-party provider – instantly freeing $500K in your IT budget. Over a few years, that adds up to substantial savings (e.g. $2.5M saved over 5 years in this simple scenario). Many providers also lock in your fees with minimal or no annual increases, in contrast to Oracle’s rising fee structure.
However, the savings go well beyond the maintenance fee reduction. Consider the upgrade costs that third-party support lets you avoid. Upgrading to EBS 12.2 or migrating to Fusion Cloud is not just a technical task – it’s a full-fledged project with significant expenses:
- Consulting and Implementation Services: Engaging Oracle or third-party consultants to plan and execute an upgrade can cost between six and seven figures, depending on the complexity of your environment.
- Internal Resource Time: Your IT team and business users must spend hundreds or thousands of hours on testing, data conversion, training, and remediation of issues during the upgrade. Labor has a real cost and represents time not spent on other initiatives.
- Hardware and Infrastructure: In some cases, migrating to EBS 12.2 or the cloud requires new infrastructure investments (e.g., new servers, cloud subscriptions, updated database versions), which adds to the cost.
- Risk and Contingency: Big projects often run over budget or require firefighting for unexpected problems, which can incur additional unplanned costs. There’s also the potential cost of business disruption if things go awry.
By avoiding the forced upgrade, all those costs are essentially saved or reallocated. Companies have reported avoiding multi-million-dollar expenditures by opting for third-party support.
For example, instead of spending $5M on an upgrade project that adds marginal new functionality, that capital can be used elsewhere – upgrading customer-facing systems, funding digital transformation projects, or simply improving the bottom line.
Let’s break down the key financial benefits of third-party EBS support:
- Immediate Maintenance Fee Reduction: Save 50% or more on your annual support fees immediately. This improves your IT budget position in the current fiscal year, which is especially attractive for organizations that need cost cuts or are facing budget pressures.
- Avoided Upgrade/Migration Costs: Save the one-time costs (often millions) of an Oracle-mandated EBS 12.2 upgrade or Fusion Cloud migration. These avoided costs are effectively a windfall that can be invested in projects that drive business value, rather than simply “keeping the lights on.”
- Long-Term IT Spend Efficiency: Over several years, the combination of lower annual fees and avoiding unnecessary upgrades can reduce the total cost of ownership of EBS by 60-90%. Many companies find that over five to ten years, the cumulative savings are game-changing – freeing funds to innovate in areas that give a competitive advantage.
- Maximize ROI of Existing Assets: You’ve already invested heavily in your EBS licenses, customizations, and user training over the years. Third-party support enables you to maximize the value of your investment by extending the useful life of your EBS system, rather than incurring additional costs to continue using what you already have. Essentially, it turns EBS into a higher-ROI asset by lowering the ongoing cost.
- Reallocate Budget to Strategic Initiatives: Perhaps the biggest benefit is not just saving money for the sake of it, but redirecting those dollars to initiatives that drive growth or transformation within the business. CIOs can utilize the freed-up budget to fund innovation – whether that involves new analytics tools, customer experience improvements, process automation, or exploratory projects. In other words, third-party support can be a catalyst for innovation funding. It flips the maintenance-versus-innovation spending ratio to be much healthier.
To illustrate, consider a real-world example: a major food & beverage company found that Oracle’s support for EBS was eating 12-15% of its entire IT budget, and an upgrade offered “no upgrade value.” By switching to third-party support, they cut maintenance spending by 50% and eliminated the upgrade mandate – allowing them to channel those savings into revenue-generating initiatives. Many others – from airlines to manufacturers – have similar stories of saving millions and achieving more with their budgets after moving off Oracle support.
In summary, the financial case for third-party support is often the easiest part of the decision. It’s not unusual for CFOs and CEOs to quickly get on board when they see a potential 50% reduction in recurring fees and the avoidance of a multi-million-dollar project. The cost savings alone can justify the move, even before considering the other benefits.
Security and Compliance Considerations
A common concern when leaving Oracle’s support is security: “If we’re not getting Oracle’s security patches, will our system be at risk?” Additionally, executives worry about staying compliant with regulations (such as tax laws and financial standards) on older software releases.
These are valid questions – but when third-party support is done right, it has strong answers for both security and compliance.
Security: Third-party support providers understand that security is paramount. Many would argue that they deliver equal or better security protection for legacy EBS systems than Oracle’s support, for a few reasons:
- Proactive Vulnerability Protection: Independent providers take a proactive approach to monitoring security threats. They know that Oracle will no longer issue new patches for, say, EBS 12.1. These providers establish dedicated security teams to continuously monitor vulnerabilities that could impact EBS and its technology stack. When a new vulnerability is discovered (whether in Oracle’s code or underlying components), the provider works to develop a patch or a mitigation strategy for their clients. This may involve custom code fixes, scripts, or configuration changes that close the security gap.
- Virtual Patching and Layered Defense: Because third-party firms don’t have Oracle’s source code for every component, they often employ creative “virtual patching” techniques. For example, suppose there’s a web security flaw. In that case, they might provide a web application firewall rule or an interception filter to block malicious exploits – effectively shielding the application without altering the original code. This approach can often be implemented faster than Oracle’s official patch. It also means even without Oracle’s quarterly Critical Patch Updates, your system can be protected in other ways.
- Focused, Timely Response: Oracle typically releases security patches on a fixed quarterly cycle. An independent support provider can release a fix or workaround as soon as a threat is identified, without waiting for a global schedule. In some cases, clients have seen third-party support address zero-day vulnerabilities faster than Oracle’s normal process would have allowed.
- Holistic Security Guidance: Third-party support teams often assist with security configuration and best practices as part of their service. They’ll help ensure your Oracle EBS environment is configured securely (for example, proper user access controls, database security settings, etc.), which sometimes goes beyond what Oracle’s standard support covers. Essentially, they act as an extension of your team to maintain a safe environment.
The result is that companies relying on third-party support can maintain a strong security posture, even on older software releases. Importantly, doing nothing (staying on Sustaining Support) would leave you without any new patches – a true security nightmare.
Third-party support fills that gap actively. Many providers also offer additional security tools or services; for instance, some have “security shield” offerings that provide extra layers of defense specific to Oracle applications.
Compliance (Tax, Legal, Regulatory): Oracle EBS is mission-critical for finance, HR, and operations, meaning it must adapt to external regulatory changes. A significant concern for staying on an older release is whether you’ll receive updates for new laws and requirements. Third-party support addresses this head-on:
- Providers deliver tax, legal, and regulatory (TLR) updates to your EBS system as part of the service. This means if there’s a new tax rate, a new HR reporting requirement, an accounting rule change, or a government-mandated form, your support partner will ensure your EBS software is updated accordingly. They build and test these updates, effectively mirroring what Oracle would have provided during Premier Support.
- For example, think of annual changes like payroll tax tables, healthcare regulations, or changes in financial reporting standards – third-party support has you covered. They often have experts in different countries’ legislation to produce timely updates for all regions where their clients operate.
- This ensures that staying on EBS 12.1 or 12.2 does not equate to falling out of compliance. You can pass audits, submit correct regulatory filings, and operate legally, just as if Oracle were still providing those updates.
- In some cases, independent support can even address compliance updates for older software that Oracle would have otherwise required you to upgrade. (Oracle might say, “We only provided that new tax form patch for EBS 12.2, not 12.1” – a third-party provider will typically create a version for 12.1, so you don’t have to upgrade just for that.)
Additionally, organizations often worry: Will using third-party support violate any licenses or put us at risk of legal jeopardy with Oracle? The answer, when done properly, is no – using third-party support is entirely legal and allowed under your Oracle license, as long as you remain a properly licensed customer (you’re not using more licenses than you own, etc.). You’re simply obtaining support from a different vendor. Oracle’s contracts do allow you to decline their support.
While Oracle has been known to use scare tactics, thousands of companies safely utilize third-party support without license issues. It’s wise to ensure you’ve fully paid for your licenses and are compliant with usage before switching (and consider your future needs to download Oracle updates before ending Oracle support). Still, the reputable third-party providers guide customers through this transition carefully to avoid any compliance hiccups.
In summary, security and compliance are fully manageable under third-party support. You won’t be left unprotected or out of compliance – on the contrary, you may get more hands-on attention to these areas than you did with Oracle. Due diligence is, of course, required in choosing a quality provider, but the top third-party support firms have a strong track record of keeping EBS clients secure and compliant worldwide.
Strategic Flexibility — Stay on EBS Without Pressure
Beyond cost and support mechanics, one of the greatest benefits of third-party support is the strategic flexibility it gives back to your organization.
Under Oracle’s regime, your IT roadmap can feel hijacked by Oracle’s deadlines and product agendas. Independent support allows you to break free from that cycle and chart your course.
Consider the freedom you regain by staying on EBS without pressure to upgrade or migrate:
- Your Timeline, Not Oracle’s: No more scrambling because “Oracle announced end-of-support dates.” You decide if and when to make a major change. Suppose your EBS 12.1 or 12.2 is stable and serving the business well. In that case, you can plan to use it for another 2, 5, or 10 years – however long it continues to provide value – without worrying about Oracle discontinuing support. You choose when an upgrade makes sense, rather than being forced into one on Oracle’s schedule.
- Align with Business Strategy: This flexibility is crucial. Perhaps your company is undergoing other transformations (mergers, new product lines, expansion) and an ERP reimplementation isn’t ideal right now. Third-party support enables IT to focus on the business’s priorities rather than those of Oracle. For instance, if moving to a cloud ERP might be beneficial in the future, you can schedule that transition when your business is truly ready, not just because support has expired. Or, if you determine that an entirely different solution (perhaps a best-of-breed approach or another vendor) is better in the long term, you have time to evaluate it properly without rushing.
- Avoiding Unneeded Disruption: Users and executives appreciate that you’re not implementing change for the sake of change. Frequent upgrades or a big migration can be disruptive – training, new bugs introduced, changed user interfaces, etc. By avoiding Oracle’s forced march, you maintain operational stability. Day-to-day business isn’t disrupted by a massive IT project dictated by the vendor’s schedule.
- Negotiation Leverage: An often overlooked advantage – by stepping off Oracle’s support, you gain some bargaining power. Oracle knows it must win you back as a customer if you ever decide to upgrade or buy new products from them in the future. Organizations that have gone to third-party support sometimes find that Oracle later offers more favorable deals or discounts to entice them back. Even if you have no plan to return to Oracle’s fold, it’s better to have options and leverage than to be a captive customer with no alternative.
- Focus on Innovation: With the pressure lifted, IT teams can focus on improvements that matter. Instead of pouring time into Oracle’s upgrade testing and patching every quarter, those same resources (both budget and people) can work on innovation. We’ve seen companies use this breathing room to, for example, implement new analytics tools on top of EBS, invest in robotic process automation for finance, or develop customer-facing digital enhancements – things that drive competitive advantage. EBS continues to run reliably in the background, supported by the third-party partner, while your IT team adds value elsewhere. In essence, you regain control of your IT roadmap and can direct your talent to projects that move the needle, rather than just keeping up with vendor mandates.
- No Cloud Lock-In (Unless You Choose): Oracle’s push to Fusion Cloud naturally aims to lock customers into Oracle’s ecosystem for the long term on a subscription basis. That might not be the best path for everyone. By staying on EBS with independent support, you keep your options open – maybe you will go to Oracle’s cloud later, maybe you’ll consider another cloud like SAP S/4HANA or Workday, or maybe you’ll stick with on-prem indefinitely. The point is, you decide based on what’s best for the business. You’re not railroaded into Oracle’s cloud because of a support deadline.
- Preserve Custom Capabilities: Strategically, many EBS customers have built unique capabilities into their ERP through years of customizations and tuning. A forced move to a new platform could mean losing or rebuilding those. With third-party support, you can continue to leverage the competitive differentiators you’ve baked into your EBS system without fear of them being sunset. This can be a strategic advantage in itself – you’re not starting over from scratch just because the vendor wants you to.
In short, third-party support gives you strategic control. It’s about having EBS serve your business strategy, rather than your business bending to Oracle’s strategy. From an executive perspective, this flexibility enables IT to be more agile and aligned with corporate goals, rather than just an order-taker for vendor-driven tasks. Many CIOs find that once they break the cycle, they have the freedom to truly optimize their application portfolio and plan evolutions on their terms.
When Third-Party Support Makes Sense for EBS
Third-party Oracle EBS support can be a powerful solution, but it’s not one-size-fits-all. How do you determine if it’s the right move for your organization?
Here are common scenarios where independent support makes the most sense:
- ✓ Your Current EBS Version Meets Business Needs: If you’re running EBS 12.1 (or 12.2) and it’s stable, reliable, and functionally adequate for your operations, that’s a strong indicator. When users and IT agree that the existing system does the job, there’s little benefit in upgrading just to get onto Oracle’s latest release. Third-party support allows you to maintain the status quo (if it isn’t broken, why fix it?) while still receiving the necessary support and updates.
- ✓ High Cost, Low Benefit to Upgrade: Evaluate the cost/benefit of Oracle’s upgrade path. Suppose an EBS 12.2 upgrade or Fusion Cloud migration would cost a fortune and deliver minimal incremental benefit (other than “staying supported”). In that case, it’s a sign that upgrading is not a good investment. Organizations with constrained budgets or higher ROI opportunities elsewhere will find third-party support especially sensible – it allows them to avoid a project with a poor ROI.
- ✓ Heavily Customized or Integrated EBS: If your E-Business Suite environment has been heavily tailored (custom modules, extensive custom reports, integrations with other systems), you likely dread the idea of redoing all those customizations in an upgrade or new cloud system. Third-party support shines here because it supports your customizations and allows you to avoid regression work. The more you’ve personalized EBS to fit your business, the more you have to lose in a forced upgrade – making independent support very attractive.
- ✓ Need to Extend EBS Lifespan: Maybe you have a strategic plan to eventually replace or modernize your ERP, but not for another 3-5 years (common in industries where you wait for cloud ERP to mature, or align with an overall digital transformation timeline). Third-party support is the perfect bridge for that gap. It ensures your EBS 12.1/12.2 stays fully supported and updated during the interim years, allowing a graceful, planned transition later when you’re truly ready. It’s essentially buying you time without downside.
- ✓ Desire to Reduce Ongoing IT Costs: If your leadership has mandated cost savings or if IT budget is under pressure, third-party support is a quick win. Swapping out Oracle support for a third-party can slash maintenance costs and help meet savings targets without cutting functionality or service to the business. It’s a rare opportunity to reduce costs without compromising capabilities – in fact, supporting quality may even improve.
- ✓ Dissatisfaction with Oracle’s Support Quality: Many customers consider leaving Oracle’s support not just for cost, but because of service frustrations. Perhaps you’ve experienced slow response times, support representatives who constantly change or provide boilerplate answers, or support tickets that languish without resolution unless you escalate aggressively. Or Oracle might only tell you “upgrade to fix this” instead of fixing the issue. Third-party providers often boast high customer satisfaction, rapid response SLAs, and dedicated senior engineers on your account. If better support service is a priority, moving to an independent provider can be a compelling choice.
- ✓ Avoiding Cloud Lock-In or Evaluating Alternatives: Some organizations are not sold on Oracle Fusion Cloud and are exploring other options (other ERP vendors, best-of-breed solutions, etc.). If you don’t want to commit to Oracle’s cloud, staying on EBS with third-party support gives you a safe harbor. You can continue to run your business on EBS while you take the time to evaluate and pilot alternatives, or wait for more clarity in the market. It prevents a rushed decision toward Fusion Cloud just out of support desperation.
- ✓ Your Oracle Support Contract is Up for Renewal: A practical consideration – if you’re approaching your Oracle support renewal date (often annually), that is a prime moment to assess third-party support. Rather than renewing Oracle’s expensive contract for another year post-12.1 support, you can decide to switch and immediately start saving and benefiting. It’s common for organizations to plan the switch around the support renewal cycle to maximize value.
In these scenarios (which often overlap), third-party support for Oracle EBS is likely a smart move. Of course, every organization should perform its due diligence: consider the future roadmap, involve key stakeholders (such as IT, finance, compliance, and procurement), and evaluate reputable third-party support vendors to address any specific concerns. In some cases, if your company is aggressively adopting Oracle’s latest technologies or needs a feature only available in the newest release, staying with Oracle support might still be the right call. But for a vast majority of mature Oracle EBS customers, the conditions above hold – the system is working, funds are tight or better used elsewhere, and there’s no compelling reason to go through an Oracle-driven upheaval. That’s when independent support emerges as a compelling alternative.
Conclusion — EBS Third-Party Support as a Smart Alternative
Oracle E-Business Suite third-party support has proven to be a smart, strategic alternative for organizations caught in Oracle’s upgrade-or-else bind. Rather than spending millions on an upgrade to 12.2 or an Oracle Fusion Cloud migration that the business doesn’t truly need, CIOs and CFOs are realizing they can take a different path – one that preserves their current stable systems, dramatically reduces cost, and avoids unnecessary risk.
By leveraging independent support for Oracle EBS, enterprises achieve over 50% savings on support fees and sidestep the expensive upgrade projects that yield little ROI. They continue to receive critical updates for security and compliance, ensuring their systems remain protected and up-to-date with regulatory changes even without Oracle’s involvement. Many find that the quality of support improves: issues are resolved faster and more holistically, and customizations or integrations are fully supported, rather than being points of contention.
Most importantly, organizations regain control over their IT destiny. Third-party support takes Oracle’s roadmap pressure off your shoulders, so you can run Oracle EBS as long as it makes sense for your business – on your terms. If and when you choose to upgrade or move to a new platform, it will be because it aligns with your strategy and delivers value, not because a vendor’s deadline forced your hand. In the meantime, the cost savings can fuel innovation and strategic projects that drive growth and competitiveness for your company.
In an era where IT budgets must be optimized and every investment scrutinized for value, blindly following Oracle’s dictated path is no longer the only option. Oracle EBS third-party support provides a viable, often superior option for many enterprises: you avoid the upgrade trap, keep a supported and secure environment, and free up resources for what truly matters. As an Oracle licensing strategist or IT leader, it’s worth considering this alternative as part of your roadmap deliberations. Many of your peers have already taken the leap and are benefiting from a more balanced, customer-centric support model.
In closing, Oracle’s “upgrade or migrate” stance might seem like an inescapable directive – but savvy CIOs and CFOs now know they have a third route. Third-party support empowers you to say “No, thanks” to forced upgrades and “Yes” to savings, stability, and strategic flexibility. It turns the Oracle support predicament on its head, giving you leverage and choice. For many Oracle E-Business Suite customers, that choice has been a game-changer – delivering the best of both worlds: a reliable EBS system and freedom from Oracle’s costly roadmap. It’s an option well worth putting on the agenda the next time Oracle’s support renewal or an upgrade discussion comes up. Your ERP, and your bottom line, will thank you.
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