Microsoft Software Assurance (SA)

Microsoft Software Assurance for Volume Licensing is a comprehensive offering that helps organisations maximise the value of their software investment.

Regardless of where you are in your software lifecycle, Software Assurance (SA) provides benefits to help you upgrade to new software, get more productivity out of existing software, and support your current environment. When you are ready to upgrade to a new version of software, SA provides new version rights at no additional cost, deployment planning services and end-user readiness benefits such as online training and home use licences.

To keep your IT department up to date and to help your end-users be more productive on existing software, SA provides classroom, technical training and online training for end-users. And to help you maintain your environment, SA also includes a 24x7 support benefit.

Software Assurance Benefits

There are over a dozen SA benefits and the amount of benefits your organisation has depends on the licensing agreement. The list below highlights the most popular benefits associated with Office.

• New software versions when they are released within the time of your agreement
• Planning services where you get onsite consulting services to create a deployment plan when you are getting ready to deploy new software. This service is available for Desktops (Window 7 & Office ), developer tools, Lync and Exchange, private cloud, management and virtualisation, public cloud and Azure, SharePoint and SQL Server
• Training vouchers for technical, classroom training to help you keep your IT staff up to date
• E-Learning is online training to get your users trained on new software to prepare for a new software implementation, or to help them be more productive on current software
• Home Use Program (HUP) provides a licence of Office, at a minimal cost, to employees for their home computers allowing them to become more proficient with the software they use at work, when they are using it at home. Microsoft takes the support calls for the home use licences so it can also help reduce the support calls going to your IT staff
• 24x7 phone and web support to help you keep your IT infrastructure up and running
• TechNet for Software Assurance subscription to provide a community of information for all of your IT issues and questions
• Microsoft Office Multi Language Pack, which enables you to deploy a single image of Office with support for 37 languages

Software Assurance and your Volume Licensing Agreement

Software Assurance is part of a volume licensing agreement. Volume licensing of software makes it easier and more affordable to run software on multiple computers within an organisation. There are many types of licensing agreements and with some of them you can also purchase Software Assurance.

The amount of SA benefits your organisation has depends on the type of licensing agreement.

FIND OUT MORE

For further information on Microsoft Software Assurance, contact your Phoenix Account Manager on 0845 265 1265 or email info@phoenixs.co.uk