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Merit Offers Consolidated Pricing For VMware Program

Ann Arbor-based Merit Network Inc. announced a new consolidated pricing model for its MeritLicensing - VMware Program.

Now, state and local government organizations are eligible to receive increased cost savings in addition to the already reduced rate to purchase VMware licenses through the MeritLicensing Program.

In April 2010, Merit reached an agreement with VMware to license its industry-leading suite of state-of-the-art virtualization software and technological support services. The agreement allows Merit to offer unlimited licenses for VMware virtualization software and technology support at significantly discounted pricing, currently unavailable from commercial distributers.

The new consolidated pricing model offers government-sector Members the same discounted pricing as Merit Members that are higher education organizations, K-12 intermediate school districts, libraries, and medical-teaching health care institutions. MeritLicensing - VMware

"By utilizing a single price, we are bringing the pricing model in line with all other Merit services," said Leslie Williamson, director of services and product development for Merit Network. "The new price enables Merit to offer the best value for VMware licenses to state and local government organizations."

"Since the new consolidated pricing went into effect, our current government Members have seen a 28 to 30 percent reduction in their VMware licensing rates," she added. "We expect that the new cost-savings will increase the growing number of government organizations who take advantage of virtualization through our VMware Licensing program."

Added Elwood Downing, vice president of member relations, communications and services for Merit Network: "A MeritLicensing - VMware License takes advantage of revolutionary software from an industry leader and delivers real savings in infrastructure costs, ongoing maintenance and reduced energy consumption. And through Merit, Members pay significantly less than they would through another provider. Now our government Members will see the same discounts as the rest of our educational Membership."

Merit Network, a nonprofit corporation owned and governed by Michigan's public universities, owns and operates America's longest-running regional research and education network. In 1966, Michigan's public universities created Merit as a shared resource to help meet their common need for networking assistance. Merit provides high-performance networking solutions to Michigan's public universities, colleges, K-12 organizations, libraries, state government, health care, and other non-profit organizations.

More at www.merit.edu.

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