Most companies across the globe are suffering during the financial crisis, grasping on to their customers for dear life. With revenues down and companies holding onto any reserve finances they have, Microsoft has implemented a discount program for its larger customers – offering a 25 percent discount on its Enterprise Agreement (EA) volume licensing contracts. If you are an EA customer, you have until July 3rd to claim the discount on licensing and software assurance. Products affected are as follows: Windows Exchange Server Enterprise, Office Communication Server Enterprise, Windows Server Enterprise and Sever Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE). In addition to the 25% discount, EA customers are also eligible for a 15% discount on licenses and software assurance for the following products: Exchange Server Standard, Office Communication Server Standard, SQL Server Standard, Office SharePoint Server, Visual Studio Team Suite, Office Project Standard, Office Project Professional, Office Visio Standard and Office Visio Professional.
In another move to gain market share in this economy, Microsoft has also released a set of eight extensions to its Dynamics CRM software that are free for download. The Dynamics CRM Accelerators have been released under a Microsoft open-source license and cover analytics, notifications, enterprise search and event management. There is also a current promotion for existing and prospective customers of Dynamics CRM that offers Convergence 2009 attendees as many as 20 users at US$9.99 per user per month for six months. Microsoft also announced that CRM Online will have a 99.9 percent service-level agreement that gives customers a month’s credit in the event of any unplanned outages.