The Enterprise Agreement is an effective way to create business flexibility, achieve standardization, ensure compliancy and simplify license administration across an enterprise. It is designed to ease the burden of license administration, budgeting and support, resulting in a decreased total cost of ownership.  

Benefits:

• Simplify administration, usage and management of software and licenses.

• Track multiple users and locations within a company.

• Ensure compliancy, especially when there are multiple people in different departments across the company ordering and using the software.

• Increase productivity by ensuring that various users are running the same versions of the software.

• Ensure that you will always be equipped with the latest technology, as Software Assurance is included with every license for updates for the term of the agreement.

How it Works:

• 3 year agreement

• Minimum of 250 qualified desktops

• Requires enterprise-wide standardization

• Every license includes Software Assurance

• Microsoft sets your pricing and you pay Microsoft directly. SHI acts as an Enterprise Software Advisor to provide pre and post-sales support.

• Spread payments into three equal installments for standard platform products purchased at signing.

The Role of the Enterprise Software Advisor (ESA)

The Enterprise Agreement is an agreement between you and Microsoft in the sense that Microsoft sets the pricing and invoices you directly. Throughout the process, however, you will still need to engage with an ESA to determine the best solution for your needs. SHI is an ESA, and as such we can provide you with the following services:

• Compliance Consultation Service (CCS) – This service will guide you in implementing effective software license management strategies for all products across your enterprise.

• Electronic Software Fulfillment (ESF) – Utilize SHI’s ESF services for the electronic transfer of code for large software implementations.

• License Re-Deployment Management System (LRMS) – Work with SHI to customize this on-line inventory management tool to meet the specific needs of your enterprise.

• Report Factory 2.0 – The second release of our revolutionary reporting tool, Report Factory allows you to capture any data, any time, any way.  Ask about our Maintenance Renewal Report for your Volume Licensing Program Management.

• Product and Licensing Information - In addition to your dedicated account team, SHI has several Microsoft product and licensing experts who can help provide your organization with the most up-to-date information via webinars, trainings and newsletters.

Enterprise-Wide Standardization and Enterprise Products:

As an Enterprise Agreement customer, you must license all eligible PCs in your organization. Your discount level depends upon the number of desktops you have according to the table below.

The Enterprise Agreement requires that you standardize on one, two or all three of the components of the Professional Desktop or the Enterprise Desktop across your organization.  

Current Enterprise Agreement customers will automatically migrate to the Professional Desktop. These customers may choose to migrate to the Enterprise Desktop as follows: 

Additional Products

You may purchase most other Microsoft software in addition to the standard platform.  

• Add them at any time during the term of the Enrollment

• You do not have to standardize on additional products as you do the standard platform

• Spread payments into three equal installments if you add them when you sign your Enrollment

• Pay for additional products at once if you add them during your agreement term

True Up Adjustment

The True Up prices for subsequent years will also be established at the time of the initial order fort he new additional product.

True Up fees for additional desktops added during the agreement term cover both the L&SA coverage for the remainder of the three-year enrollment term. In order to calculate a True Up payment, the number of desktops that is added to the initial desktop count throughout the year is multiplied by the True Up price for the current year.

Enrollment Term and Extension

At the end of the third year, you may renew the enrollment for one or three years continuously. Renewal pricing is based on the SA portion of the products, which reduces the EA price from that of a new agreement that included L & SA in one.

Media Fulfillment

Upon receipt of the Enterprise Agreement, Microsoft currently sends a CD-ROM kit, which contains all the products offered to date by Microsoft, to the contact listed on the enrollment. Enrolled affiliates will automatically receive an update kit, which contains only those pools that are covered under your agreement, once a month until the end of the agreement. Microsoft will provide enrolled affiliates with a master CD-ROM kit specific to the pools and languages selected. You may order additional kits from SHI.

Software Assurance Benefits

In addition to new version rights and the ability to spread payments, SA offers Enterprise Agreement Customers customers the following benefits:

• Desktop Deployment Planning Services for the Enterprise - DDPS is a discovery session conducted by Microsoft Consulting Services or Microsoft Certified Partners who have demonstrated their proficiency with deployment solutions. These engagements will help you to understand the business value of upgrading, the cost of migrating and a deployment roadmap designed specifically for your organization. The length of these engagements ranges from one to fifteen days depending on your Software Assurance purchases.

• Windows Pre-Installation Environment - Windows PE is a powerful deployment tool that streamlines the installation and troubleshooting process, eases the administrative burden and makes IT professionals more productive.

• Windows Vista Enterprise and Virtual PC Express - Windows Vista Enterprise licenses help you to maximize your desktop investments with powerful tools and technologies that help reduce IT costs and the complexity of managing corporate PCs. It helps protect sensitive data and intellectual property on lost or stolen PCs. It also includes integration of all worldwide Windows languages (MUI), which helps reduce the cost of managing a single, global system image for your PC hardware. Virtual PC Express is a feature of Windows Vista Enterprise that lets you run legacy applications on legacy operating systems in a single, virtual machine.

• Windows Vista Ultimate - Windows Vista Ultimate is Microsoft’s most comprehensive edition of Windows Vista. It is the first operating system that combines advanced business-focused, management and efficiency features of a mobility-focused operating system along with all of the digital entertainment features of a consumer-focused operating system. This version is for the person that wants one operating system that is great for working from home, working on the road, and for entertainment. It cannot be activated using volume license keys. It requires activation one desktop system at a time. Upon activation of this benefit, customres will receive one media kit. The Benefit Administrator will need to contact the Software Assurance Call Center for product activation.

• Training Vouchers - Training vouchers offer training on select Microsoft courses from Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions. More than 1,600 learning partners worldwide offer official Microsoft instructor-led, online and self-paced courses and consultative learning services to help you improve productivity and reduce training costs.

• eLearning - Help your users to become educated on new products. Microsoft's eLearning delivers a comprehensive student experience, using streaming audio and video software demonstrations, hands-on exercises and courses designed by professional instructors. Employees can take interactive modules and tutorials on various applications at any time at their own computer, even offline.

• Home Use Program - Increase employee productivity and ensure compatibility between documents created at work and at home when you grant your employees the rights to Microsoft Office System products to install on home computers for personal and business needs.

• Employee Purchase Program - Provide discounts to your employees on dozens of Microsoft products for their personal use. Employees can get the flexibility of using the same software at home that they use at work, as well as save money on great software products for home management and entertainment. Best of all, your organization is not responsible for the end-user’s compliance – the end-user license agreement is between the end-user and Microsoft.

• Enterprise Source Licensing Program - Receive read-only access to Microsoft Windows source code for internal development and support. IT staff can make adjustments and improvements to systems and related applications, and implement improved debugging to help maintain security and protect against viruses.

• 24 X 7 Problem Resolution Support - Enjoy phone support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for business-critical outages on all Microsoft-supported products including all server editions, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office applications. Phone support includes Microsoft server, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office System products and editions, even if the specific license requiring support does not have Software Assurance coverage. Product must be in mainstream phase of the product lifecycle and eligible for SA Benefits. Visual Studio, Developer editions of Server, or Home and Entertainment products not included. SA awarded incidents can be converted to Premier support incidents which allows you to receive Premier service levels. In addition, server products covered by Software Assurance receive unlimited web support.

• Corporate Error Reporting - Control deployment of fixes and resolutions. Microsoft Corporate Error Reporting gives your IT professionals a clear and easy way to monitor and review error information. It allows applications and the operating system to collect and report on crashes in the system, and gives IT staff the ability to control the types of reports sent to Microsoft.

• SA Exchange Server Applications - Block unwanted junk email and help your employees work more productively. SA Exchange Server Applications includes Exchange Server-based tools and technologies as well as Intelligent Message Filter to combat the influx of unsolicited commercial email.

• Cold Server Backup for Disaster Recovery - Protect valuable data without buying a new license. Software Assurance grants you the right to install server software on a cold server for the purpose of disaster recovery in the event of an emergency.

• TechNet Plus Managed Newsgroups and Subscription Media - Increase your efficiency for finding solutions. IT professionals have access to TechNet Plus Subscription content, featuring resources such as the knowledge base, utilities, drivers and how-to articles to help them succeed. The TechNet Plus Subscription Media also includes access to beta release candidate software and evaluation copies of the latest applications.

• Extended Lifecycle Hotfix Support - Request hotfixes for products in the Extended Lifecycle Support without signing up or paying an initial fee prior to determining a need. This means you do not pay for extended support unless hotfixes are required. As always, security fixes are automatically guaranteed.

• Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's - A Windows-based operating system designed for customers with legacy PCs who are running legacy operating systems but are not in a position to purchase new hardware.  Windows Fundamentals provides the same security and manageability as Microsoft Windows XP SP2 while providing a smooth migration path to the latest hardware and operating system.

To enroll in an Enterprise Agreement

Contact your dedicated SHI Account Executive at 888-764-8888 for pricing and further information. Found out how your institution can benefit from Microsoft's Enterprise Agreement and using SHI as your Enterprise Software Advisor.