Microsoft Software Assurance
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Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) is a Microsoft maintenance program aimed at business users who use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and other server and desktop applications. The core premise behind SA is to give users the ability to spread their payments for the software over multiple years, while offering "free" upgrades to newer versions in that time period.
The full list of benefits, effective March 2006, are as follows:
- Upgrade rights to newer versions of software as they become available
- Spread payments over multiple years
- Windows Preinstallation Environment for building custom installs of Windows XP & 2003
- Windows Vista Enterprise Edition will only be available to Software Assurance customers
- Training: Free IT training from Microsoft, and access to E-Learning[1], a series of interactive online training tools for users.
- Home use: Employees of a company with SA can use an additional copy of Microsoft software at home on their own computers
- Employee Purchase Program: Employees also get discounts on retail purchases of Microsoft products
- Access to the Windows source code for larger companies (1,500+ desktops)
- 24x7 telephone and web support
- Additional error reporting tools to let administrators collect information on application failures
- Free licenses for additional servers provisioned as "Cold backups" of live servers.
- Access to Technet managed newsgroups
- Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
- Extended Hotfix support: Typically Microsoft charges for non-security hotfixes after mainstream support for the product has ended (e.g. 5 years for Windows); this charge is waived for SA customers
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[edit] History
Software Assurance was part of Licensing 6.0 and initially only provided upgrades, but around the Office 2003 release, more benefits were added. In March 2006, Microsoft added even more benefits, including the Windows Vista Enterprise Edition and the Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs.
[edit] List of upgrades that Software Assurance provided
This list is incomplete, please help by adding more.
[edit] Value
Those that purchased SA in 2001 for Windows XP received no upgrades during the term, but those that purchased it for Windows 2000 Server were provided an upgrade to Windows Server 2003. Those who purchased SA for Office XP received an upgrade to Office 2003.
