Next Version Free
That’s basically what Susanne is asking, at least for folks who purchase the current version of SBS between now and the release of SBS Next AKA Cougar AKA SBS 2008.
Which is fine, and makes sense…but still smacks of retail tomfoolery.
As soon as Cougar was officially announced as arriving in 2008, we began including Software Assurance in all our quotes, basically explaining to customers that based on our info, it’s a good guarantee that they would receive the next version automatically. In other words, it’s nearly assured that their software would be eligible for the upgrade.
But people still don’t bite on SA all that much.
You know why I think that is?
Because SA smacks of market timing. Nobody like the idea of being jacked out of their money simply because they signed on a dotted line at the wrong time. Ask the early iPhone buyers about that.
And yeah…sure…there are other benefits to SA. A whole LiveMeeting session or 3 worth of them.
But SA isn’t called…
Mr. Ligman’s Amazing Add-on Pack Of Spectacular Training, Management And Usage Rights With Limited Edition Decoder Ring
If it were, then that stuff might carry more weight with customers.
But since the central idea of Software Assurance is the Assurance about their Software…
Then adding Next Version Free AKA NVF to that Assurance would carry a lot of weight.
Obviously, MS could then start pushing out insanely thin version updates to fulfill NVF. R3 anyone?
But we can cross that bridge if/when we come to it.
Personally? I won’t be holding my breath.
I’m not holding my breath either, but I’ve seen the slump in sales of SBS in the UK and it’s about 1 SBS to every 5 WS being sold right now which is a real shame.
Partners are finding it hard enough to justify SA like you say - partly because when you lift the veil it doesn’t seem so pretty but also because when a reseller/consultant operates in a managed services environment it takes many of the SA benefits and snuff them out in one go. I don’t know why we don’t have something that makes everyone’s lives that bit better - if it’s not Tech Guarantee then I don’t want to place our hopes on promos where we only get short-term notification on.
comment by Susanne — December 19, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
Brilliant idea. Wish I’d thought of it. Oh, wait a minute. I *did* think of it, about 18 months ago. See http://davidschrag.com/schlog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/ballmerlicensingmemo.pdf.
comment by David Schrag — December 26, 2007 @ 5:44 pm
@ David…
2 points:
1.) You have a blog?
2.) 404 not found
comment by chris — December 26, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
The auto-hyperlinking function put an extra period at the end of the URL. Try http://davidschrag.com/schlog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/ballmerlicensingmemo.pdf (this one should work).
comment by David Schrag — January 11, 2008 @ 8:19 pm