SPLA Essentials: A Simplified Licensing Option for Hosting Providers

SPLA Essentials is a new offering from the Microsoft Services Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA) program targeted at small to mid-sized hosters, Web developers and Independent Software Vendors. The SPLA Essentials offering is ideal for partners that want to license the latest Microsoft products but do not require the extended program rights of SPLA.

SPLA Essentials offers basic program rights and a simplified online enrollment process, providing small to mid-market businesses an affordable and easily manageable licensing solution for software services and hosted applications.

Key Benefits of SPLA

SPLA Essentials offers the same product pricing and Usage Rights as SPLA. The following benefits are common to both SPLA and SPLA Essentials:

• Pay only for the program rights you need, with no upfront costs. Pay as you go for the products you authorized customers to use the previous month.
• Access up-to-date product versions. Download the most current product versions at no charge through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center.
• Test products internally. Evaluate products internally before providing them to your customers.
• Deliver a customized service to your customers. Deliver tailored IT services through a shared or dedicated hosting environment and enhance your services by managing your customers’ software use rights.

Unique Features of SPLA Essentials

The following features make SPLA Essentials convenient and manageable for small to medium hosting organizations and Web developers:

• Easy enrollment: Simply click to accept the terms and conditions of your license agreement and sign electronically on the SPLA Essentials Web site.
• A single online resource: Use the SPLA Essentials Web site to report monthly usage, place orders and manage your account.
• Partnering choices: Partner with Microsoft directly online or through a SPLA reseller.

Learn more about SPLA Essentials and how it can extend your business.

Is SPLA Essentials right for your customers and prospects?

SPLA Essentials is ideal for small and mid-market hosting providers, Web developers and Web Value Added Providers (WebVAPs) that do not require the extended terms and conditions of SPLA and want an easy and affordable way of licensing Microsoft products to provide software and hosted applications to their customers.

SPLA Essentials does not allow for enrolled affiliates, data center outsourcing, customer evaluations, customer facility installations or product demonstrations.

Compare SPLA and SPLA Essentials.

SPLA and SPLA Essentials provide partners with per-subscriber and per-processor subscription licenses to deliver customized IT services in shared and dedicated hosting environments.

For more information, see the SPLA Program Guide.