Core enterprise systems have become economic infrastructure across various sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing, with enterprise resource planning, database and virtualisation platforms no longer sitting at the edge of the business, but rather being central to finance, supply chain, billing, human resources and regulatory reporting.

Demand for third-party support companies in South Africa had, therefore, increased among local enterprises, allowing for greater flexibility in terms of vendor support.

With this in mind, third-party support company Spinnaker Support, in partnership with investment company African Rainbow Capital, recently entered the South African market to support enterprises seeking greater flexibility in managing their Oracle, SAP and VMware estates, particularly as licensing models and commercial terms evolve in international markets.

In a media release, Spinnaker described the offering as well-timed. Spinnaker Support South Africa MD Teko Mojaki added that organisations were facing vendor-driven upgrade cycles, licensing shifts and end-of-support deadlines that converted technology roadmaps into "forced capital events".

Further to that, the company explained that boards were being asked to fund AI, cyber resilience and productivity initiatives while simultaneously absorbing large, complex platform upgrades.

Hence, by providing third-party support and managed services for Oracle, SAP and VMware environments, Spinnaker enabled organisations to maintain secure and stable core systems without being forced into immediate upgrades.

Additionally, the company explained that it reduced exposure to vendor-driven timing pressure and resulted in a reallocation of budget and internal capacity toward higher-return transformation initiatives.

Speaking to Engineering News at a media event on May 27, Mojaki noted that, while some original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the space were pushing clients to migrate their information to the cloud within a certain timeframe, many local companies were not ready for this shift.

Hence, Mojaki said, third-party support companies, such as Spinnaker, offered support beyond the timeframe given by OEMs, providing a viable alternative for customers while also providing cost savings.

When asked whether he had seen any pushback or hesitation from the market in adopting third-party support, Mojaki said clients were ready to embrace alternative solutions.

Hence, he emphasised the importance of brand awareness and education to establish trust in the market.

Moreover, Spinnaker said the launch also aimed to address a structural market shift.

Globally, enterprises are reassessing how they govern core platforms. Key drivers include subscription and licensing model changes that alter long-term cost structures; dollar-denominated contracts in rand-based operating environments; and rising programme risk associated with large, simultaneous upgrade initiatives and scarcity of skilled internal capacity to execute transformation at scale.

In this environment, Mojaki said, optionality had economic value.

“When organisations have credible support alternatives, they gain time and time has become the scarcest resource in enterprise IT.

“Spinnaker’s model enables businesses to stabilise core environments securely while deciding what to modernise, when to modernise it, and how to sequence change without increasing operational disruption risk,” he said.

Spinnaker said success in the market would depend not only on cost savings, but on measurable resilience outcomes including vulnerability management, integration stability, governance alignment and risk transparency.

“Organisations that separate stability from transformation, quantify the risk of forced change, and redeploy freed capacity deliberately will be best positioned to modernise with discipline. Spinnaker’s South African launch is designed to support exactly that outcome,” said Mojaki.

Meanwhile, speakers participating in a panel discussion on May 27 highlighted the role AI is expected to play in the enterprise software landscape for companies.

Spinnaker chairperson and founder Mathew Stava said he expected AI was going to become a larger part of that landscape, adding that open source technology had also risen in terms of enterprise level credibility.

“We have a lot of customers coming to us for that, so we're working on both, where we've got modernisation initiatives inside our organisation, not only for ourselves, but for our customers as well,” he said.

“AI is going to have a huge impact in our industry,” Mojaki added, noting that AI agents were expected to shift core business processes in the future.

Spinnaker Support Europe, Middle East and Africa sales VP Jon Gill thus emphasised the importance of driving continual learning in the space to ensure the successful adoption of AI within enterprises.

“You need your resource pool within your business to be continual learners, continually evolving, because the speed of change within the coding, the speed of change within AI, how you write the prompts, that is something that you need in your organisation if you want to be successful with your AI deployment,” he said.