ServiceNow and Rimini Street forge groundbreaking partnership: ServiceNow has announced a strategic alliance with Rimini Street, a leading third-party software support provider, to bring AI innovations to on-premises ERP systems worldwide.
- The partnership, revealed as part of ServiceNow’s Q3 2024 financial results, aims to create a new enterprise software model that allows existing on-premises ERP systems and other enterprise applications to leverage ServiceNow’s AI platform.
- This collaboration combines ServiceNow’s single architecture and data model with Rimini Street’s proven third-party software support capabilities to enhance customer innovation across key business areas such as procurement, finance, supply chain, HR, customer service, and IT.
Impact on on-premises ERP customers: The partnership offers a lifeline to organizations that have delayed their transition to SaaS or vendor-hosted cloud offerings for ERP, SCM, HCM, and CRM systems.
- Many companies have hesitated to upgrade due to the high costs and complexities associated with multi-year, multi-million-dollar transformation programs.
- This reluctance to upgrade has often resulted in a lack of access to new vendor AI innovations, a major drawback for businesses seeking to stay competitive.
- The rising support costs from software vendors like SAP and Oracle for legacy on-premises systems have driven many customers to seek third-party support providers like Rimini Street to reduce expenses and extend the life of their perpetual license applications.
Addressing modernization concerns: The partnership effectively counters the primary criticism of third-party software support – the lack of modernization and inability to add new AI innovations.
- By partnering with ServiceNow, known for its modern platform enabling workflows, automation, AI, and service management capabilities, Rimini Street has addressed this concern head-on.
- Customers using Rimini Street can now add a layer of AI and automation innovation to their existing systems without undergoing costly upgrades or transformation programs.
- This allows on-premises customers to access innovation immediately, particularly valuable in the current economic climate of uncertainty and inflation.
Implications for SAP customers: The partnership offers significant benefits for SAP S/4HANA on-premises and ECC on-premises customers.
- These customers can now leverage ‘Business AI’ innovations without waiting to complete or even initiate expensive ‘RISE with SAP’ S/4HANA cloud programs.
- Many SAP customers who have switched to Rimini Street for third-party support due to rising SAP support costs can now innovate within their current systems, empowering them to transform without disruption.
Competitive landscape in enterprise software: The partnership comes amid intensifying competition among enterprise software mega-vendors.
- SAP, Oracle, Workday, Salesforce, and ServiceNow are vying for market share and positioning in ERP, HCM, SCM, CRM, and ITSM, with only two successfully positioning as end-to-end platform companies.
- The race for enterprise AI is accelerating, with recent announcements from Workday and Salesforce on a federated data model partnership, Oracle’s multi-cloud partnerships, and SAP’s enhanced business AI offerings.
Broader implications: The ServiceNow-Rimini Street partnership represents a significant shift in the enterprise software landscape, potentially altering the dynamics of cloud migration and on-premises system support.
- This collaboration offers a middle ground for organizations hesitant to migrate to the cloud, allowing them to benefit from AI innovations while maintaining their existing on-premises infrastructure.
- The partnership may pressure other software vendors to reconsider their strategies for supporting and innovating legacy systems, potentially leading to more flexible and customer-centric approaches in the industry.
Recent Stories
DOE fusion roadmap targets 2030s commercial deployment as AI drives $9B investment
The Department of Energy has released a new roadmap targeting commercial-scale fusion power deployment by the mid-2030s, though the plan lacks specific funding commitments and relies on scientific breakthroughs that have eluded researchers for decades. The strategy emphasizes public-private partnerships and positions AI as both a research tool and motivation for developing fusion energy to meet data centers' growing electricity demands. The big picture: The DOE's roadmap aims to "deliver the public infrastructure that supports the fusion private sector scale up in the 2030s," but acknowledges it cannot commit to specific funding levels and remains subject to Congressional appropriations. Why...
Oct 17, 2025Tying it all together: Credo’s purple cables power the $4B AI data center boom
Credo, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company specializing in data center cables and chips, has seen its stock price more than double this year to $143.61, following a 245% surge in 2024. The company's signature purple cables, which cost between $300-$500 each, have become essential infrastructure for AI data centers, positioning Credo to capitalize on the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure expansion as hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI rapidly build out massive computing facilities. What you should know: Credo's active electrical cables (AECs) are becoming indispensable for connecting the massive GPU clusters required for AI training and inference. The company...
Oct 17, 2025Vatican launches Latin American AI network for human development
The Vatican hosted a two-day conference bringing together 50 global experts to explore how artificial intelligence can advance peace, social justice, and human development. The event launched the Latin American AI Network for Integral Human Development and established principles for ethical AI governance that prioritize human dignity over technological advancement. What you should know: The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Vatican's research body for social issues, organized the "Digital Rerum Novarum" conference on October 16-17, combining academic research with practical AI applications. Participants included leading experts from MIT, Microsoft, Columbia University, the UN, and major European institutions. The conference...