Software Assurance

Software Assurance (SA), Microsoft’s subscription-based software maintenance plan, can be added to volume licenses to provide the right to upgrade at any time to new product versions released during the term of coverage, typically two or three years (and renewable thereafter). Sold exclusively through volume licensing programs, the SA annual fee is 29% of the original license price for desktop software and 25% for server-related licenses.

SA also includes technical support and training benefits and, depending on the product, can offer exclusive product usage rights (e.g., virtualization options), access to a high-end edition of a product or to an add-on technology, and inexpensive copies for employee home use.

New Version Rights

SA was originally conceived as a version upgrade program, and although other benefits have been added to the mix over the years, new version rights remain SA’s primary benefit.

Until 2002, corporate customers who owned a Microsoft product one or more versions out-of-date could usually purchase a substantially discounted version upgrade whenever they liked after the new version became available. This gave customers the opportunity to evaluate the new version before purchase, as well as the option to skip a version if its benefits didn’t outweigh licensing and deployment costs.