It's Q4 2026 !

Retail freeze starts in December. Silly season is already knocking. January is a write-off. Which means if your BI 4.3 or Data Services 4.3 upgrade hasn't started — and I mean actually started, not "it's on the roadmap" — then the window is effectively closed for this year.

1 January 2027 is eleven weeks away.

I published the full breakdown of what Customer-Specific Maintenance actually means back in July — and I'd encourage you to read it if you haven't: https://clintvosloo.com/sap-customer-specific-maintenance-bi-43-ds-43-what-it-means

One thing worth noting since that article: SAP updated their CSM Knowledge Base Article 3486924 to Version 9 in July 2026. The title has been updated to explicitly include the full product suite — "Customer-Specific Maintenance Phase for SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence & suite products (DS / IS / Lumira)" — and the environment scope now explicitly names SAP Data Services 4.3 / 2025, Information Steward 4.3 / 2025, and Lumira Designer 2025. SAP has made it crystal clear this is not just a BI platform conversation. It covers the entire suite.

The terms haven't changed. The deadline hasn't changed. What has changed is that we're now inside the final quarter.

Businessman in Eyes Wide Shut masquerade mask pushed up on forehead, wide eyes, December 2026 calend

Eyes Wide Open (No, Not That Movie)

"It's Q4 2026. Eyes wide open. All of it."

About the Author

Hi, I'm Clint and I've been knee-deep in the SAP Business Objects world for over 25 years now. Yeah, I know, longer than I care to admit. My first installation was way back in SAP BI 6.5 - back when Desktop Intelligence was still a thing. Needless to say, I've seen it all.

After running two wildly successful global SAP Analytics consulting firms, being a SAP Mentor, and speaking on all things SAP Analytics and SAP Business Objects around the world, I'm here to help. I've moved to the "employee of one" model, and I'm available worldwide to assist you with your SAP BO upgrade.

I get it - I know how SAP is moving towards a "cloud first" approach, just like every other big vendor out there. But I also know that customers need to keep their on-premise BI 4.x implementation running alongside SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), as there's no seamless migration path to SAC. With all the lower versions of Business Objects, except for BI 4.3 and BI 2025, now being out of support, the need to upgrade for many customers is pressing. So, feel free to connect with me below to start the conversation or connect with me here or you can find out more about me here.

“With over 25 years in SAP Analytics, I’ve guided numerous businesses through seamless upgrades, ensuring minimal downtime and optimal performance.”

Simplify Your SAP Upgrade Today!

So Where Does That Leave You?

If your upgrade is in flight — good. Focus on landing it cleanly before December.

If it hasn't started — damage control time. Be honest with yourself about what that means:

December is dead. Retail freeze, change freezes, skeleton crews. Nobody is signing off a production BI upgrade in December.
January is slow. Teams returning, backlogs clearing, budget cycles starting. Not impossible, but not ideal.
That puts you into February 2027 at the earliest — a month into CSM, operating under the exact conditions I described in the original article.
That's not a disaster. But it means going in eyes wide open about what your support position looks like in the meantime.

What Eyes Wide Open Actually Means

You're still "supported" under CSM. In theory. But as I wrote in July — that word means something very different after mainstream maintenance ends.

New bugs are billable. No SLAs. No legal updates. No internal SAP test environment. Security patches only for CVSS ≥ 7.0, and only for the first 12 months. SAP cannot guarantee resolution.

If you've made a deliberate, informed decision to stay on BI 4.3 into CSM while you execute a controlled upgrade — that's fine. That's a risk decision made with full information.

What I don't want is for customers to arrive in January 2027 surprised by any of that.

One More Thing

I'll be honest — I expected the urgency of this deadline to drive more upgrade activity through 2026 than it did. The pattern I'm seeing is the same one I've watched through every BI version EOL cycle: the deadline is visible for 18 months, planning starts late, and the scramble happens in the final weeks.

The difference this time is that CSM is a materially different support model to anything SAP BusinessObjects customers have experienced before. The scramble has more consequences.

If you're now looking at this as a 2027 project and want to map out what a clean, controlled upgrade looks like — reach out. That conversation is free.

Eyes wide open. All of it.