Microsoft Software Assurance Benefits
Microsoft Adds Eight Benefits and Enhancements to the Software Assurance
Maintenance Offering
Customers of all sizes can better accelerate organizational performance and derive the most value out of their software with the help of this comprehensive maintenance offering.
Planning
Microsoft continues to offer upgrades to new versions of licensed software released during the term of the agreement and the ability to spread payments annually. These two important benefits help customers deploy the latest technology when they want to, budget more effectively to reduce costs and shorten business procurement timelines. Deployment
The following two new benefits are designed to alert customers to the availability of design planning services for their IT teams and help enable them to use them:
- Desktop Deployment Planning Services provide Select and Enterprise Agreement customers that have Software Assurance with services delivered either on site or remotely by experts from Microsoft Certified Partners or by Microsoft Consulting Services. These one- to 10-day engagements are designed to improve customers’ understanding of the business value of upgrading to the latest versions of Microsoft Windows and Office and the cost of migrating their environment. The consultants will develop a high-level desktop deployment plan and show customers the latest tools, technologies and best practices for deployment to reduce the total cost of ownership of the desktop.
- Information Work Solution Services provide Open Value customers with predefined service offerings developed by Microsoft and delivered by Microsoft Certified Partners to help them get even more value from their investments in the Microsoft Office system. The one-day Information Work Discovery Workshop helps business people develop a prioritized list of high-impact projects, while the two-day Information Work Architecture Design Session helps IT specialists and technical decision-makers understand the architecture required to implement those solutions.
Use
Two new benefits and one enhancement will help enable customers to take advantage of the latest technology and build staff skills for better technology deployment, migration and management.
- Windows Vista™ Enterprise is available exclusively as a benefit of Software Assurance and is designed to help midsize and larger organizations significantly lower IT costs and improve IT efficiency. Windows Vista Enterprise includes Full Volume Encryption, which helps enhance the protection of sensitive data. It also supports advanced application compatibility scenarios with Virtual PC Express by enabling customers to run legacy applications in a virtual machine. Virtual PC Express will be available for customers to begin using before the release of Windows Vista Enterprise Edition.
Out of the box, Windows Vista can dramatically reduce the number of corporate images an IT professional needs to manage by allowing a single system image to span multiple PC configurations and form factors. Windows Vista Enterprise takes that one step further by including all Windows languages for integration into a single worldwide system image at no additional cost, helping speed up and lower the cost of global deployments.
- Extended Training continues to be a benefit highly valued by customers that want to increase the skills and expertise of their IT professionals on the latest technology, at no additional cost. This benefit will continue to be available, and now SA customers that have at least 30,000 Microsoft Office or Windows client licenses will receive an additional number of training vouchers that can be used for training from a Microsoft Certified Partner for Learning Solutions.
Maintenance
This important new support services enhancement was made based on customer feedback:
- 24x7 Problem Resolution Support. Customers can receive 24x7 phone support incidents for business-critical outages for all products eligible for Software Assurance benefits, including all server editions and Microsoft Windows-based and Microsoft Office applications. In addition, Software Assurance customers with Microsoft Services Premier Support contracts can now transfer their phone incidents earned through Software Assurance for Premier Problem Resolution incidents, which delivers a higher level of support service such as critical situation management and the personalized support relationship with a Technical Account Manager. The unlimited Web support for servers covered by Software Assurance, available today for Enterprise and Select customers, will be extended to Open Value customers.
Transition
Three new benefits, one already implemented in July 2005, were designed to assist customers in managing their software transitions.
- Extended Lifecycle Hotfix Support (available since July 2005) allows Software Assurance customers with Premier or Essential Support agreements to sign an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement if and when they need a hotfix, increasing peace of mind and reducing support cost. Annual fees are now included as part of the Software Assurance benefit, and there is no requirement to sign up within a 90-day period of a product’s transition to Extended Support. Covered products include Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Windows Client Operating System, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), Microsoft SQL Server™, Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) and Microsoft Windows Server™.
- Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (formerly code-named “Eiger”). For enterprise customers concerned with security and manageability of legacy PCs running legacy operating systems, but that are not in a position to replace those PCs, Microsoft is introducing Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs as an exclusive benefit to SA customers. Based on Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs is designed to provide a bridge solution that enables customers to get additional life out of legacy PCs while reducing security risks and improving manageability as well as providing an easy upgrade path to new PC hardware running either Windows XP or Windows Vista.
- Enterprise Edition Step-Up License helps provide SA customers with the ability to achieve significant cost savings by migrating from the standard edition of a select list of products to the enterprise edition without having to purchase a new license, paying only the difference and maintaining their current SA coverage.
