Microsoft Advances Volume Purchasing With Select Plus Offering

REDMOND, Wash. — July 1, 2008 — The new Microsoft Select Plus Volume Licensing program offers larger companies with multiple business units flexibility in purchasing, streamlined license management, and reduced time and potential costs of renegotiating licensing agreements.

The flexible licensing program enables customers to automatically realize price advantages for volume purchasing across the entire company at corporate and affiliate locations. It can also track both the contract and ordering processes under a single customer ID, making it easier to manage software licenses throughout an organization. Informed by customer research, the new program helps Microsoft Corp. improve the way it brings products and services to market and supports its ongoing relationships with customers.

Select Plus provides customers with additional options for purchasing and represents a fundamental shift in how customers and partners can manage the acquisition of software licenses. Through a unique set of customer benefits and features, Select Plus can simplify purchasing with a single agreement under the Master Business Agreement while eliminating variances based on purchase timing.

“Select Plus is a tailored response to customer feedback for greater flexibility and enhanced manageability in purchasing,” said Joe Matz, corporate vice president for Worldwide Licensing and Pricing at Microsoft. “We depend greatly on our customers’ input to gain a deep understanding of the features and benefits they’re looking for. We want to enable an optimal purchasing experience, not to mention simplify the ongoing management of their software licenses so they get the most value out of their investment.”

Select Plus is a natural add-on to customers’ existing Enterprise Agreements and an alternative to the traditional Select License to consolidate transactional purchasing across multiple agreements. Customers can easily purchase and manage additional licensed products and services on a per-project basis as well as instantly qualify for the next discounted price level through increased purchase volume. Because Select Plus agreements never expire for transactional purchases, customers can experience more flexibility while eliminating the need to renegotiate and renew their contracts. In addition, customers choosing to add Microsoft Software Assurance (http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/default.mspx) can do so at any time and receive the full 36 months of Software Assurance benefits such as deployment planning services, support and training.

Pricing and Availability

Like the Select License, the Select Plus program categorizes software products into three distinct product pools:

  • Applications. Examples of Microsoft applications include Microsoft Office Professional 2007, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 spreadsheet software and Microsoft Office Project 2007.

  • Systems. An example of a Microsoft desktop computer operating system software program is a Windows operating system upgrade such as Windows Vista Business.

  • Servers. Examples of Microsoft server software programs include the Windows Server operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server database software, and associated client access licenses (CALs).

Each software product carries a point value, and the price level is based on product points earned for automatic tiered discount levels. To ensure that customers receive the appropriate price level for greater volume purchasing, the price-level adjustment is based on actual purchase volume across the organization. Eligible government organizations and qualifying academic institutions receive special pricing.

To qualify and participate in the Select Plus program, customers can avail of any of three channels:

  • Existing Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Subscription Agreement, Campus Agreement or School Agreement. In this method compliance is waived as long as the agreement is active.

  • Another Volume Licensing agreement. By providing an existing Select License agreement number, customers have the option to migrate to the new program at the same price level.

  • New customer. New customers qualify with an initial order totaling 500 points in a given product pool.

Select Plus is expected to be available in the fall of 2008. More information about Select Plus and other Microsoft Volume Licensing programs is available at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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