Major Changes Made to Select Programs over Past Few Years

Select Plus and Select “classic,” a pair of programs that allow medium and large organizations to make ad hoc license purchases at the time of their choosing, have undergone significant modifications over the past five years. These include a gradual phasing out of Select classic as well as significant changes to how Select Plus handles the duration of Software Assurance (SA) coverage periods and how price discount levels are determined. In some cases, the impact of a particular change doesn’t take effect for several years, or takes several years to completely unfold.

The timeline below is especially useful for a customer who has used Select Plus or Select classic and wants to get an update on historical changes to these programs. (For an overview of the two programs and what they share in common, see the sidebar “What the Select Programs Have in Common“.) Also, if a customer encounters something unexpected and seemingly at odds with current rules, the timeline can sometimes help link the origin of the discrepancy to the lingering effects of an old rule. Note that Select classic, first introduced in the 1990s, will be completely phased out by Dec. 2016 when the last Select classic agreements expire.