A December survey of 175 SAP users from 23 countries found that despite a hefty price tag, companies are planning SAP upgrades in 2008.

"The results of this survey predict a growing number of SAP upgrades next year as companies face increased maintenance costs and seek better application performance for their growing SAP databases," stated the survey, which was conducted by Gamma Enterprise Technologies, a maker of application data management software for companies using SAP applications.

In all, 37 percent of the respondents said their organizations plan to upgrade to a new SAP version in 2008, while an additional 17 percent have upgrade plans for 2009.

Of those respondents who are going forward with an upgrade, 43 percent claimed the reason was to reduce maintenance costs, which "can consume 80 percent of SAP operational expenses annually," said the survey. In addition, 58 percent of respondents said they expected the upgrade would increase application performance benefits.

According to the survey, however, the price tag for an SAP upgrade is considerable: More than 85 percent of survey respondents reported that their organizations plan to spend up to $25 million during the SAP upgrade process.

The third-annual survey also noted the size and complexity of users' SAP systems. "Gamma found that the percentage of respondents with databases larger than 500 gigabytes grew from 66 percent to 82 percent in this year's survey," according to the data. "The percentage of respondents with databases larger than 2 terabytes has increased from 14 percent to 24 percent this year."