Press Reviews 2008
A million, in two parts
Young entrepreneurs and researchers are looking for capital and contacts at the Heidelberg Innovation Forum. At the end of November, three representatives from the region around Heidelberg also tried to get on the good side of potential investors.
Matthias Schmitt is more euphoric today. […] He represents the Heidelberg company, VMS AG (VMS Corp.). The company specializes in benchmarking IT processes at companies. The Heidelberg companies use a specially-developed software of their own, and thereby uncover potential for improvement. "We have been the market leader in the IT area for the past six years", states Schmitt. Now, VMS AG also wants to move into the fields of Logistics and Sales.
(Article in German)
Virtualizing the SAP landscape sets undiscovered potential free
Particularly in the area of SAP, the calls for cost reduction and flexibility have grown in the past few months. But that can only be achieved by making the landscapes more dynamic. And according to Ralph Treitz, CEO of the optimization specialist VMS, concepts doing so can help companies save “up to 33 %” on business operating costs.
(Article in German)
SAP relents after customer protests
[...] The protests against the price policy of the software manufacturer SAP have been successful: After customer complaints, the company has taken back its price increase for software maintenance. But the retreat could become a problem for SAP, because the company makes more on support than on the sale of its software.
Mid-sized companies are very relieved. “SAP has done itself a big favor. Now SAP can speak with its customers about a more reasonable support agreement”, stated Ralph Treitz, the founder and chief executive officer of the SAP service provider VM Solutions, and simultaneously an SAP customer. [...]
(Article in German)
Virtual SAP as a Cost-Killer
Dynamic concepts reduce SAP operating costs by up to 33 percent. Which strategy is the best for your company ?
(Article in German)
Ways out of the SAP Cost Trap
[...] The efficient management of requirements saves costs, states Ralph Treitz, the managing director of VM Solutions, which specializes in SAP benchmarking. When users have the freedom to develop requirements, the complexity of course increases, the maintenance costs rise, and the post-release change processing that is also required rises. [...]
(Article in German)
23 smart people present their ideas
The Chinese language knows only one word for both the concepts of crisis and opportunity. The Heidelberg Innovation Forum was very much overshadowed by the threatening economic recession. Its message was: currently, the stage is set for new innovations.
(Article in German)
VMS has become an AG (Corp.)
VMS, the provider of SAP benchmarking and optimization in Heidelberg, Germany has chosen the corporation as its new company form.
(Article in German)
“SAP should think from the point of view of the customer”
The Heidelberg SAP benchmarking company VM Solutions GmbH has become a corporation. silicon.de spoke with Co-founder Ralph Treitz about the background of the change of company form, as well as the current developments at SAP.
(Article in German)
VMS GmbH becomes VMS AG
The Heidelberg, Germany, IT service provider VMS GmbH has become a corporation, but without an initial public offering. The company, which was founded in 2002 with 9 employees, this year foresees sales of 1.7 million euros, after attaining sales of one million euros in 2007.
Hardware only helps to a limited degree
An unpleasant project that went sour for Kurt Trautmann in the SAP rollout phase. Kurt Trautmann, CIO of Schüco, scheduled a “health check” of the performance of his systems, due to declining performance.
Virtualization improves SAP services
SAP outsourcing makes companies more flexible, but virtualization allows the systems to be dynamically adapted at any time.
VMS as a service provider specializes in benchmarks and the optimization of SAP landscapes, and has analyzed many platforms and environments that run SAP systems. The goal was to find out which advantages and disadvantages the various concepts have, from local server installations, to the ‘software as service’ variants. Flexibility and cost-effectiveness were the main focus.
VMS, in carrying out the analysis, used its own benchmarks from twelve mid-sized companies. Four companies had SAP running on their own servers, four used outsourcing, whereby the service provider had commonly-used, typical servers running. The remaining four companies had a partner that ran the SAP systems on virtualized servers. The result: Companies that use SAP outsourcing save one third of their software operating costs. By virtualizing the SAP environment as an additional expansion step, performance and service quality rise considerably, because resources can be made available dynamically, and on request.
The study entitled "Dynamic services for Running SAP", was created based on an order by T-Systems, and was carried out by VMS. T-Systems offers services of that kind under the name Dynamic Services. The software runs in a distributed server environment that is quickly scalable, instead of on a central server. In that way, the required performance for high-performance business applications is always available.
(Article in German)
SAP License Management Overview
Companies often underestimate the follow-on costs of IT investments....
(Article in German)
Download: VMS_20081009_BWK_Energie-Fachmagazin_kurz.pdf (987KB)
Attempting to achieve price fairness leads to complexity
If the maintenance level, as is the case with SAP, is based on the licensing, then the licensing should be limited as much as possible. Ralph Treitz is the managing director of VM Solutions GmbH, and he looks at the license volumes of the users.
(Article in German)
The claim of higher speed has to first be proven
Before signing a new SAP license contract, Marcus Dreßler, CIO of Ravensburger AG had to get outside help.
(Article in German)
SAP virtualization is worth it
The Heidelberg, Germany SAP benchmarking company VMS made available the results of the study “Dynamic Services for Running SAP”. Based on VMS's information, the analysis underscores the advantages of virtualizing SAP operating environments.
(Article in German)
Study on the virtualization of SAP operating environments
Does converting in-house SAP systems to virtualized SAP operating environments pay off ? A new study looked at this question.
(Article in German)
SAP's enterprise support remains a problem
The SAP User Group, at its yearly congress, spoke out vehemently against the new SAP Enterprise support prices. However, it remains a question if that will bring any results or not. Thus, the real goal for companies should be to use their existing optimization potential.
(Article in German)
License consulting: Consulting as a path through the SAP jungle
[...] SAP customers can expect higher maintenance and support costs. Skillful negotiation and the right strategy can hold costs in check. However, when in doubt, only license consulting can truly help. [...]
(Article in German)
SAP licenses: “Thin can often be translated as ‘sparce’ “.
IT service providers use benchmarking tests to look at the usefulness of SAP licenses. Ralph Treitz, Managing Director at VMS, explains why what SAP already has on hand, is an insufficient strategy.
(Article in German)
SAP license consultants help lower maintenance costs
With the start of 2009, SAP is expanding its enterprise service agreements to existing customers. The support fees are increasing, in steps, from the current standard support fees, and will increase from 17 to 22 percent of the license price.
(Article in German)
License consultants can help deal with SAP price increases
The move to unified enterprise support - at 22 percent of the license price, which SAP promotes as a service improvement, has resulted in much unhappiness at companies. But professional license consultants can “sniff out” your business opportunities, and they can help you through the “jungle” of costs and license fees.
(Article in German)
New prices at SAP: CIOs need the advice of SAP license consultants
VMS uses license management to reduce the costs of the IT infrastructure. The leading SAP benchmarker, VMS, provides companies with a comprehensive method of optimizing their SAP environment.
(Article in German)
VMS helps reduce maintenance costs, using SAP license consultants
From January 2009 on, SAP’s enterprise services and support model will also include existing, core customers. The support fees will thereby increase to 22 % of the license prices. But an SAP license consultant can help you to save on costs, by showing you how to implement leaner structures.
(Article in German)
Saving on SAP licenses
The exact effects of the SAP price increases on specific companies depend on the size of their SAP landscape, states Treitz. It is to be assumed that mid-sized companies, due to their IT structures, will be hit harder than large companies and corporations.
(Article in German)
Software companies anger their customers
[...] The consolidation in the market for enterprise software is showing its ugly side: SAP and Oracle have both raised their prices in the past few weeks. Many users have found the additional costs to be a huge burden. But in the end, they will have to accept the new prices, because there appear to be no alternatives.
Particularly small firms suffer from the additional costs. In addition, with respect to SAP maintenance, they find the added value of the products problematic. “The added value for large customers is definitely there. For smaller customers who only use the core program and an additional module, I have a hard time identifying it”, states Ralph Treitz, the founder and head of VM Solutions (VMS), an SAP customer and at the same time, a service provider in the SAP world. [...]
(Article in German)
TÜV NORD puts its trust in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SAP
Simplified migration, higher security against system downtimes, and cost savings
(Article in German)