{"text":[[{"start":10.95,"text":"The EU has announced a formal investigation into SAP’s role in a part of the market for business software, with regulators saying that one of Europe’s largest tech companies may have “restricted” competition."}],[{"start":24.9,"text":"Brussels regulators said the probe was focused on the provision of maintenance and support services for so-called on-premises software."}],[{"start":34.43,"text":"The EU said it was concerned that some of the practices implemented by SAP might constitute “exploitative conduct” towards its customers “that may be qualified as unfair trading conditions”."}],[{"start":49.66,"text":"Announcing the investigation on Thursday, the EU’s competition chief Teresa Ribera said: “We are concerned that SAP may have restricted competition in this crucial after-market, by making it harder for rivals to compete, leaving European customers with fewer choices and higher costs.”"}],[{"start":71.39,"text":"SAP, which is based in the town of Walldorf in south-west Germany, is one of Europe’s few big tech groups, with a market value of €275bn. It has tried to shift its business from selling on-premises software licences towards more lucrative cloud service contracts."}],[{"start":94.09,"text":"Responding to the EU investigation, SAP said its “policies and actions are fully in line with competition rules” and that it would work closely with Brussels to “resolve the issues raised”. It added that its business policies were “based on long-standing standards that are common across the global software sector”."}],[{"start":115.77000000000001,"text":"Shares in SAP slipped almost 2 per cent after the probe was disclosed. SAP said it did not expect its discussions with the European Commission to have a material effect on its financial performance."}],[{"start":130.71,"text":"The probe marks the EU’s first formal antitrust investigation into SAP but it has been looking into the firm’s business practices for a while. In 2022, the EU asked customers whether they found it easy or difficult to switch their support contracts from SAP or Oracle to alternative vendors, and whether they could freely choose and renew support services."}],[{"start":156.86,"text":"Next to US rival Oracle, SAP is one of the two largest providers of so-called enterprise resource planning (ERP) software globally, which is used to run the core processes of a company, keeping finance, operations, HR and supply chains aligned. "}],[{"start":175.25,"text":"While SAP is strategically shifting towards cloud solutions, it continues to generate substantial revenue from its traditional on-premise software, which includes its legacy ERP systems. In 2024, SAP’s revenues from software support, which includes ERP, was €11.3bn, compared with overall revenue of €34.2bn."}],[{"start":200.93,"text":"Brussels has accused SAP of requiring customers to buy maintenance and support services exclusively from the company. It said SAP’s practices may prevent customers from mixing providers or tailoring contracts."}],[{"start":217.18,"text":"The EU also alleged that SAP bars customers from terminating support for unused licences, automatically extends initial licence terms to lock in support payments and imposes hefty reinstatement fees on those seeking to return after a break."}],[{"start":247.62,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1758851665_7388.mp3"}