The company added new benefits to its Software Assurance enterprise licensing plan. Also, enterprises will be requred to sign up for Software Assurance to get Windows Vista Enterprise Edition.
Microsoft shook up its Software Assurance licensing program Thursday, adding a raft of new benefits to quiet critics, but also requiring corporations to pony up if they want the top-of-the-line Enterprise Edition of Windows Vista when the next-generation OS ships in 2006.
At least one analyst was unimpressed. "Software Assurance has outlived its usefulness," said Paul DeGroot of Directions on Microsoft, a Redmond, Wash.-based research firm that specializes in tracking Microsoft"s moves. "The farther we get into this [new upgrade cycle], the less attractive SA has begun to look."