“Software Assurance Renewal” messages
Today, a number of departments received messages from CDW-G about needing to renew Software Assurance for one or more of their licenses. The messages look like this:
Dear HENRIETTA TWITTLEWHEEZE
The Software Assurance (SA) portion of the current three year UC Microsoft Select license agreement will expire on January 31, 2008.
Select SA coverage provides you with the right to upgrade to newer versions released during the term in which you own SA. SA is valid for the term of the agreement, purchased in one, two or three year increments depending on when during the three year agreement period you purchase the license with SA. Renewals are all for the full three year period. SA also provides you with certain learning tools and trainings that Microsoft makes available to customers who own SA.
If you purchased or renewed Select SA coverage at any time from January 2005 through December 2007 and wish to renew that coverage, *you will need to submit your renewal order to CDWG by February 26, 2008* to ensure process time before the deadline with Microsoft.
Your order(s) that need to be renewed are:
Q5877392Items ordered were
ACAD MS SEL VIRTUAL PC MAC LIC/SA 1Y
I think I can speak for the majority of our departments when I say: Huh?
What happened here is that the department (often unwittingly) purchased a license for Microsoft software that includes Software Assurance (SA) for one year. (That’s what “SA 1Y” means at the end of the license). Usually this was unintentional and caused by the confusing CDW-G price lists. What it means is that you purchased the right to upgrade your software to the latest version, for a period of up to one year. (Actually, it’s not really a full year; it’s whatever portion of the year was left until January 31, and it’s not pro-rated). If you renew your SA (by paying an additional license fee), you’ll continue to have the right to upgrade to the latest version; if you don’t renew, you’ll have to buy a new license when you want to upgrade.
Our general recommendation on SA is, don’t buy it unless there’s a specific reason to. The way the pricing works is that you pay almost double the stand-alone license cost for the right to upgrade to a future version you don’t even know you’ll want. Better just to buy the stand-alone license, and buy another one when you know you want to upgrade. (Back in the old days, you could buy a cheaper upgrade, but Microsoft and most other software companies have done away with upgrade pricing.)
But, if you got one of these messages, you already bought SA, so what should you do? First of all, you should make sure you have the most recent version of the software; you’ve purchased the rights to it, so grab it before your rights expire. If you already have the latest version, you probably don’t need to renew SA; you can just buy a new license when the time comes.
Licensing is one of the issues we’re examining as we develop a strategic plan; this situation highlights the high cost of managing and keeping track of software licenses the way we currently do. I would like to move to a model where a standard suite of software licenses is paid for centrally or included in our yearly rates, so that departments don’t have to spend so much energy on these kinds of issues. It will take a fairly significant reworking of how computing in L&S is funded, but I think we can do it.
