Microsoft’s volume licensing programs serve a variety of business sizes and requirements. The left column lists some key features that can affect which program a company chooses to use, and the remaining columns compare how the plans implement those features.

	Open Business	Open Volume	Open Value	Open Value Company-Wide	Select	Enterprise Agreement	Enterprise Subscription Agreement
Minimum Organization Size	1 PC.	Organizations with fewer than 50 PCs are unlikely to purchase enough software to meet minimum purchase requirements.	1 PC.	5 PCs.	Organizations with fewer than 150 PCs are unlikely to purchase enough software to meet minimum purchase requirements.	250 PCs.	250 PCs.
Basic Proposition	Small initial purchase (can be as low as US$200) of business-related products earns modest discount.	Modest initial purchase (can be as low as US$25,000) of business-related products earns

Microsoft’s volume licensing programs serve a variety of business sizes and requirements. The left column lists some key features that can affect which program a company chooses to use, and the remaining columns compare how the plans implement those features.

Software Assurance (SA) is Microsoft’s upgrade and maintenance rights program, which is optional in some programs and included in others. In most agreements, customers make SA payments annually over the term of their agreement.

“Platform products” used in some programs include three categories of products: Office, a Windows upgrade, or a suite of Client Access Licenses (CALs). If a customer buys one of each category for every qualifying PC in the organization, the customer is eligible for an additional 15% “platform discount.”

All programs include access to Web sites where customers can track purchases and in some cases order and download software. Licenses in some agreements are sold only by Large Account Resellers (LARs), of which there are approximately a dozen in the United States and several hundred worldwide.