BSI 9.0 Upgrade-Support Packs Out of Date-Is My Employer Unique

Hi All,

My company is running R/3 4.7, including the HR module and gross to net US payroll. A business decision was made to not apply updates such as Support Packs or Stacks unless there was a legitimate business need. Feel free to take me to task over the position, however the decision was made at a higher level in the organization. We have been very fortunate up to this point in the sense that we have not had a business need for any HR Packs or Stacks since late 2004. At that point, which was near the beginning of our implementation, we went to HR Support Pack 35.

Well it has come time to implement BSI 9.0, and we are required to move to HR Support Pack B2/Stack 35 in order to make BSI 9.0 work. B2 has been out for about 9 months now, so it isn't new. My employer has asked me to push back on BSI, and our Basis guy to push back on SAP, asking for more TUBS updates for 8.0 beyond 8/31/2011. We have been unsuccessful in getting anything from either source, and my guess is that we will continue to be unsuccesful. The obvious answer is to apply support packs, but they still don't want to apply the packs, because we are in the middle of a project, and they feel as if the testing will slow the project down. I am confident we can go without TUBS updates until 12/31/2011, but no longer than that, and I have been told clearly that this extension will not help-the project still won't be done at that point.

I've been told by my manager and his manager, we can't be the only company that is in this situation. But I believe we might be. So here's the question-if you are reading this, is your company, or another company you are familiar with, in this situation? And if you are, how are you addressing the impending deadline.

Just to restate-are you, or do you know someone on R/3 4.7 extension set 110, running US Payroll Gross to net, and not applying HR Support Packs?

All comments and questions welcome.

Budman