Microsoft released a statement about its upcoming campaign addressed to large businesses, which will start in October 2008 and will offer a brand new flexible Volume Licensing program. It will be called Select Plus and will present companies with multiple activities the opportunity to reduce their costs and time spent on renegotiating licensing deals and flexibility on purchasing arrangements.

The decision to begin the development of such a program came after several years of sustained complaints from clients demanding a solution for the complicated and expensive process of acquiring multiple products from the company with different licensing structures.

"Select Plus is a tailored response to customer feedback for greater flexibility and enhanced manageability in purchasing," explained Joe Matz, corporate vice president for Worldwide Licensing and Pricing at Microsoft, according to the SunHerald. He also added that: "We depend greatly on our customers' input to gain a deep understanding of the features and benefits they're looking for."

The program offers the company’s combined efforts aimed at releasing a useful product, filled with Microsoft’s applications, add-ons and features, meant to provide its users with a useful and accessible tool.

Select Plus’ main leverage to other programs is its licensing term which never expires. In addition to that, it also allows, through its Master Business Agreement, multiple purchase contracts. This feature sets distinctive guide lines and contract details for the companies’ different departments, affiliates or locations. This will become extremely useful, as a single customer ID will be enough to manage the activity related to software licenses from all the departments of a certain organization.

The deal involves a three-year add-on of the Software Assurance (SA) maintenance program, which some consider useless. In fact, it can be considered a very good feature, as it guarantees purchasers the next version of Microsoft’s software.