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Ask The CRM Expert: Questions & Answers

Is Oracle support or third-party support the better choice?

Is Oracle support or third-party support the better choice?

By  William Band, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research 

SearchCRM.com

Do you think it is necessary to purchase premier support for Oracle products? We are running a version of Siebel that is several years old. I've done some reading about Siebel's support integration, but I wonder if it's worth it to buy the extra support.
The cost/benefit equation for purchasing Oracle's premier support depends on your company's own technical infrastructure and staff proficiency, appetite for risk, and future plans.

If you have deep in-house technical skills, are not experiencing application, problems, have no immediate plans to expand upon the application, or are not planning an upgrade, then premium support will be of little value to you. In fact, I see growing interest in companies turning away from vendor support and buying this capability from emerging-third-party suppliers. There is a significant base of CRM customers (for all major vendors) that have no immediate intention of upgrading their solution and are looking for ways to reduce their maintenance and support costs by not renewing annual vendor support agreements. They are purchasing support from third parties.