The SAP UK & Ireland User Group, which also lodged a strong initial protest, "is continually engaging with SAP regarding the support issue," a spokesman said by e-mail.

The Americas SAP Users Group (ASUG) said in a statement that it will have time to evaluate the enterprise support offering through customer case studies "of what works and what needs correction -- thus, leverage our considerable member base to influence SAP to either change the costs or change the offerings, as appropriate."

In an interview, however, ASUG CEO Steve Strout said the group's advocacy would adopt a strictly diplomatic tone, and noted that the group did manage to convince SAP to phase in the cost increase over time.

"We want to continue to help influence this, but it is not our position to demand a set dollar amount [from SAP]," he said. "We can't go in there and say we're going to demand that prices are only going to be at 17 percent because then we're acting as a collective bargaining organization and we don't have the legal right to do that."

There are multiple ways customers can band together and fight back, said Forrester Research analyst Ray Wang.

For example, customers should perform an audit to figure out how often they've contacted SAP support and what patches and updates have been applied, he said via e-mail. "Share that data among members to establish a baseline and increase transparency of ownership costs as legally permitted. Segment by industry, size, region, version number. You can then figure out the money spent to date and the value realized to date."

Customers should also avoid signing a new SAP maintenance agreement that lasts more than one year, giving themselves an option to consider third-party maintenance options, he said.

Enterprise software support company Rimini Street plans to start such a service in 2009.

As for SAP, one long-time SAP integrator expressed skepticism that it can deliver a higher level of support to its customer base.

"I have one question -- where's all the talent going to come from? And if you could find the talent, would they want to be sitting on the support desk?" asked Mike Kerrigan, vice president of business applications at Laurus Technologies in Itasca, Illinois.

SAP's support service isn't optimal right now when it comes to general questions, Kerrigan said in an interview: "Nobody jumps up and down and says, 'I called SAP and got a great answer.'"

However, he acknowledged that the company is quite responsive when it comes to serious issues, such as a full system crash. "When you get onto SAP support desk and tell them that, I've always thought they really rallied."