Andrew Powell (Rimini Street)
Global Oracle and SAP software support specialist Rimini Street is launching a subsidiary in New Zealand and opening an office in Auckland.
The company already supports nearly 50 clients with operations in New Zealand, plus local brands James Pascoe, Spark, 2Degrees Mobile, Refining New Zealand and The University of Auckland.
Sean Jones, the company's newly-appointed senior account executive based in Auckland, will be responsible for developing the third-party support market and for educating the local Oracle and SAP customer base that they have alternatives for their annual software maintenance spending.
Before Rimini Street, Jones was systems account executive at Oracle, he has also held roles at Dell and Vodafone New Zealand.
Rimini Street’s expansion was announced at an event held at The Northern Club in Auckland hosted by Rimini Street’s general manager for Asia Pacific Andrew Powell and other corporate executives.
Powell said Rimini Street can help organisations break free from expensive upgrade cycles dictated by software vendors, adding that some clients had saved up to 90 per cent of the cost of SAP and Oracle software maintenance.
“Organisations in New Zealand, both public and private, spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on their annual enterprise software support and maintenance, yet see little return from this significant spend,” Powell said.
“Our conversations with CIOs are squarely focused on how we can help them dramatically lower the total cost of ownership of their stable, mature enterprise systems as part of a hybrid computing model and business-driven roadmap, and as a result, we are experiencing increased demand in the region."
Powell said savings can then be used for innovation rather than maintaining business as usual.
"With budget pressures between operating costs and the need to invest in innovation, CIOs need to reassess the value of existing support arrangements and explore better software support options designed to provide a greater return on investment," he said.
