Contrary to reports that indicate a high level of dissatisfaction, Microsoft claims that it is seeing record high renewal rates of its enterprise software agreements.

In a posting on a company website, Joe Matz, corporate vice president of Worldwide Licensing and Pricing, said that renewal for the company's Enterprise Agreements " exceeded the high end of our historic range of 66-75 per cent".

Enterprise Agreements are Microsoft's volume licensing programme for large companies. The programme includes a mandatory subscription to the Software Assurance programme. The latter entitles customers to free upgrades for their software at a fee of 29 per cent of the original licence. A user who paid $200 for his copy of Windows Vista, for instance, will have to pay $58 each year thereafter for potential updates.

Both Forrester Research and Gartner have recently pointed to rates of customer dissatisfaction with the Software Assurance programme. Given the large delays in the release of Windows Vista, many contracts have expired without the user ever having the benefit of receiving an upgrade.

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