Rimini Street, which provides enterprise support for Oracle and SAP products, is extending its services to include IBM and Microsoft databases.
From today the company is offering support for IBM DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server as well as SAP’s Sybase family of database products: SAP ASE, SAP IQ, SAP SQL Anywhere and SAP Advantage Server.
The support covers IBM DB2 Tools for Linux, UNIX and Windows; and Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, the company said in a statement this morning. As with Oracle and SAP, Rimini’s support services include issue diagnosis, configuration assistance, health checks and tuning.
The company, which opened its Sydney headquarters in 2008 and additional offices in Melbourne last year, also announced it would be offering advanced security services, powered by McAfee, via virtual patching.
“Today’s announcement further executes on our plan to broaden our product coverage portfolio, expand our service capabilities, and increase our service footprint with clients,” Seth Ravin, Rimini Street CEO, said today in a statement.
“The addition of these six additional database products from IBM, Microsoft and SAP to our growing portfolio of supported enterprise software products, gives even more enterprise software licensees the opportunity to leverage Rimini Street’s award-winning support, to enjoy a more robust, relevant and responsive support model, and to liberate substantial funds that can be re-directed to strategic growth initiatives,” he added.
The announcement significantly expands Rimini’s potential customer base. Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP are the top four database software vendors by market share, representing nearly 83 per cent of the total global database market, according to Gartner market analysis.
Founded in 2005, Rimini operates by undercutting the annual support fees from the major database vendors, which often escalate when enterprises continue to use outdated products. Rimini, which says it works with 10 of the ASX top 50 companies, claims some customers save up to 90 per cent on total support costs.
The company guarantees clients can remain on their current software release without any upgrades for a minimum of 15 years, and has around 1900 customers globally.
Seeing red
In October Rimini was handed permanent injunction prohibiting it from the copying, distribution, and use of Oracle’s copyrighted software and documentation.
“This permanent injunction imposes important restrictions on Rimini Street, and Oracle is grateful that the Court has taken steps to prevent continuing unlawful acts by Rimini Street and its executives,” Oracle’s general counsel Dorian Daley, said at the time.
In 2015, Oracle was awarded US$50 million and $46.2 million in attorneys’ fees following a five-year legal fight with Rimini.
In May, it was announced Rimini would be merging with publicly traded investment firm GP Investments Acquisition Corp. At closing of the transaction, GPIAC will be renamed Rimini Street Inc. Subject to approvals the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.