Press release
Partners to benefit from competitive pricing and potential to profit from additional revenue streams
LONDON, UK. - 16 September, 2008 - Microsoft today announced the Open Licensing Programme for Government, a new way for public sector organisations to purchase software from Microsoft resellers. Available from October 1st 2008, the Open Licensing Programme for Government will enable channel businesses serving the public sector to sell licensed Microsoft software at a discounted rate. This will help Microsoft resellers in the public sector to provide more competitive pricing to their customers and compete for business more effectively. It will also allow those channel businesses currently selling Microsoft Open Licenses to start targeting the public sector.
Previously the Government discount was only available to LARs selling Select and Enterprise Agreements to government organisations. Now smaller government organisations, such as town and parish councils, local development agencies and GP practices will be offered the lowest price available across government. This will enable channel businesses to deliver significant savings to their customers in public sector.
Richard Gibbons, Software Manager, Bechtle Direct, highlights the new revenue opportunities; "The launch of the Open Licensing Programme for Government provides us with a fantastic opportunity to reach new public sector customers in the UK market. Many of these customers were previously either unreachable, or we couldn't offer the same breadth of choice as we could for other license offerings, such as corporate and academic. This is a great chance for us to really go out to customers with something new that provides us with incremental revenue opportunities."
Microsoft Head of SMS&P Public Sector, Mark Smith, said, "We want to help our partners to deliver solutions that best suit their customers' needs, and drive maximum profitability in the channel as a result. By extending the availability of discounts, we will help public sector organisations to have greater access to technology and this in turn will drive increased revenue streams for the channel. Not only will existing public sector resellers benefit, our partners selling Open Licenses will be able to break into this market."
The new deal is available to Microsoft partners with public sector customers that have more than five PCs. To access this offer, resellers should contact their authorised distributor or visit the Microsoft website (www.microsoft.com) and follow the links to ‘Open Licensing Programme for Government'.
