Rochester City School District Saves Millions of Dollars in Software Maintenance Costs with Rimini Street

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rimini Street, Inc., the leading third-party maintenance and support provider for enterprise software, including SAP AG (NYSE:SAP) software and Oracle Corporation’s (NASDAQ:ORCL) Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite, Oracle Database and Hyperion software, today announced that Rochester City School District based in Rochester, New York, is saving a projected $6 million in cumulative support costs over 10 years while leveraging Rimini Street Support for PeopleSoft. Since switching annual support from Oracle to Rimini Street in 2011, the District has also benefitted from improved, more responsive service for its PeopleSoft applications. Rochester City School District, like more than 50 other public sector organizations, made the switch to Rimini Street to reduce total support costs by up to 90 percent, enabling them to meet mandated budget cuts and reallocate resources towards protecting fundamental programs and funding strategic initiatives.

“The public sector continues to face significant budgetary hurdles to providing much-needed services for our communities, and Rimini Street is committed to partnering with these organizations to help them save up to 90 percent in total support costs over a decade and gain award-winning, premium-level services”

Fiscal Uncertainty Remains a Challenge for Public Sector in 2013

Fiscal uncertainties at the U.S. federal, state and local levels continue to have a major influence on public sector organizations. The effects of repeated budget crises and lingering questions about longer-term solutions to current fiscal imbalances make it difficult for public sector organizations to successfully navigate today’s challenging economic conditions.

Rimini Street helps public sector organizations address these current and potential future budget challenges by replacing annual support from the software vendor with a more responsive, concierge-level support program that delivers savings of 50 percent in annual support fees, and also drives significant reductions in related support and maintenance costs with savings of up to 90 percent in total overall support costs. Rimini Street enables cost reductions beyond the 50 percent savings in annual support fees by allowing clients to run their current software releases without any required upgrades for at least 10 years and providing support for customizations, interoperability, performance and interfaces at no additional fee. Additionally, Rimini Street provides clients with a 24X7X365 premium-level service model with an assigned Primary Support Engineer (PSE) that eliminates the need for extra maintenance resources and headcount associated with inefficient, burdensome vendor support processes and policies.

These additional cost reductions drive total maintenance cost savings of 15x their current annual support fees over a decade for a typical organization switching to Rimini Street Support. For example, an organization paying the software vendor $1 million annually in support fees would realize overall savings of $1.5 million per year or $15 million in total maintenance cost savings over 10 years with Rimini Street. This dramatic reduction in total maintenance costs realized by switching to Rimini Street provides immediate budget relief, allowing public sector organizations to use the savings to retain jobs and continue to fund vital services that benefit the public.

Rimini Street Helps Rochester City School District Save Jobs and Implement Key Initiatives

Rochester City School District provides education services for nearly 32,000 students ranging from pre-Kindergarten through grade 12, including 10,000 adults in its community. As with many urban school districts around the country, the District has faced budget deficits that required cuts to fundamental educational services nearly every year.

Led by chief technology officer Annmarie Lehner, Rochester City School District moved from vendor support to Rimini Street after determining that their existing Oracle PeopleSoft system was mature and stable and able to run mission-critical operations for a decade or longer. Furthermore, after having recently upgraded to PeopleSoft 8.9 and 9.1 releases, Lehner concluded that Oracle’s expensive maintenance costs were not justified by the level of service and support they were receiving or the value being delivered in incremental upgrades.

“The move to third-party support of our PeopleSoft apps was not a decision we made lightly,” said Lehner. “However, we were facing an extremely challenging fiscal period and we knew that our current support model was not sustainable. In evaluating Rimini Street’s customer base, we received very favorable assessments of Rimini Street’s service and support and we felt confident in our decision. I would strongly urge any public sector CIO who is evaluating their organization’s enterprise software strategy to proactively consider the responsive service and substantial cost savings of third-party support.”

As a result, Rochester City School District has been able to redirect budget savings to several strategic IT initiatives that benefit its teachers and staff and help to enhance student progress and school performance overall. In 2011, Lehner’s team rolled out new functionality for its PeopleSoft system, including the ePerformance module. Additionally, the District recently licensed Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) in order to implement a centralized reporting system across the District. The new platform is in the process of being rolled out to every principal, teacher and building administrator in the district.

More Than 50 Public Sector Organizations Cut Maintenance Costs with Premium-Level Support from Rimini Street

550+ organizations, including more than 50 public sector organizations, have switched to Rimini Street Support to maximize the return on their software investments. These organizations include federal institutions, state, county and city governments, health and educational institutions, non-profit organizations, public utilities and other public sector entities, such as Abilene Independent School District; Birdville Independent School District; Brazoria County, Texas; City of Eugene, Ore.; City of Flint, Mich.; City Of Louisville, Ky.; City of Ontario, Calif.; City of Santa Monica, Calif.; Cowlitz County, Wash.; Detroit City Public Schools; Douglas County, Wis.; Frederick County Government; Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office; Kansas City Missouri School District; Laramie County School District 1; Lucas County, Ohio; Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA); National FFA (Future Farmers of America) Organization; Oakland County, Mich.; Pittsburgh Public School District; Shawnee Mission Schools and Spokane County.

“The public sector continues to face significant budgetary hurdles to providing much-needed services for our communities, and Rimini Street is committed to partnering with these organizations to help them save up to 90 percent in total support costs over a decade and gain award-winning, premium-level services,” said Seth Ravin, Rimini Street CEO. “We are proud to be a trusted partner to Rochester City School District in their tireless efforts to provide high-quality education to their communities, and we will continue to dedicate ourselves to providing all of our clients with the most value-driven, ultra-responsive enterprise software support option in the industry.”

About Rimini Street, Inc.

Rimini Street is the leading third-party provider of enterprise software support services. The company is redefining enterprise support services with an innovative, award-winning program that enables Oracle and SAP licensees to save up to 90 percent on total support costs over a decade, including saving 50 percent on annual support fees. Clients can remain on their current software release without any required upgrades or migrations for at least 10 years. Hundreds of global, Fortune 500, midmarket, and public sector organizations from virtually all industries have selected Rimini Street as their trusted, independent support provider. To learn more, please visit www.riministreet.com or call within the USA 888-870-9692 or internationally +1 702-839-9671.