Deployment Planning Benefits Modified

Deployment planning services, included in Microsoft’s Software Assurance (SA) upgrade and maintenance offering, have been renamed Packaged Services and have been expanded to include not only desktop software deployment planning but also SharePoint Server deployment planning. Microsoft has also made the services more flexible to use and changed the way customers earn deployment planning days. In particular, large customers will be eligible for many more deployment planning service days, and all customers will have more options when converting training vouchers to deployment planning services.

Deployment Planning Services

Deployment planning services offer customers the services of an experienced partner when planning software deployments. The service does not include actual software deployment, but it can help remove barriers to adoption or upgrades of Microsoft software.

Through Apr. 2008, SA coverage on desktop applications included two specific deployment planning benefits:

Information Work Solution Services (IWSS) provided desktop application planning services for small customers using the Open Value volume license plan. They could convert training vouchers (another SA benefit) into vouchers that could be used for a one-day or two-day IWSS engagement, at a ratio of one service day for every two training vouchers.