Dragon Professional Group Renewals — Maintenance & Support for Australian Government

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What you are actually renewing

Dragon Professional Group is sold as a perpetual licence. The licences themselves do not expire — once your agency owns them, you own them. What expires annually is the Maintenance & Support (M&S) contract attached to those licences, and that is what most government renewals are actually for. (In older Nuance documentation this product is also referred to as Maintenance & Upgrade Assurance, or MUA — it is the same annual renewable entitlement.)

Maintenance & Support is two things bundled into one annual fee:

• Maintenance gives your agency the right to receive new versions and upgrades when Microsoft / Nuance ships them. Without active M&S, you stay on the version you bought and have no contractual entitlement to upgrade.
• Support gives your IT team portal access to the Microsoft / Nuance support engineering team to raise cases for issues that can't be resolved locally — Windows compatibility, profile corruption, deployment errors, anything that needs vendor escalation.

For most Australian Government agencies, an active M&S contract is also an audit requirement. Software asset registers typically require evidence of current vendor support coverage for productivity software in active use. Lapsed M&S shows up as an audit finding regardless of whether the software is functioning normally.

How a government renewal works through Voice Recognition Australia

The renewal process below is the standard path for an Australian Government agency renewing Dragon Professional Group M&S. We have done this many hundreds of times across federal, state and territory agencies.

1. You send us your renewal position. At minimum we need: approximate seat count, M&S anniversary date (if known), and your intended procurement instrument (direct PO, panel order, eMarketplace, P-card for sub-threshold renewals). If you don't have all of that, send what you have — we have reconstructed renewal positions from less.
2. We return a verified quote. Pricing is based on your seat count and the current Nuance / Microsoft channel rates. The quote references your agency, the renewal SKU, the renewal period, ABN and GST treatment, and our authorised reseller status, and is formatted for direct upload to your finance system.
3. You raise the PO. Standard government payment terms apply. We do not require pre-payment for established government accounts.
4. We process the renewal through the channel. Renewal extends your existing entitlement — there are no new licence keys to deploy and no end-user disruption. Your users see no change.
5. You receive confirmation and updated documentation. Renewal certificate, updated M&S end-date, and tax invoice are returned to the procurement and technical contacts within a few business days of PO receipt.

Lapsed Maintenance & Support — can we backdate it?

This is the most common reason Australian Government agencies contact us about Dragon Professional Group. M&S lapses — typically because the renewal notice was missed during staff turnover, or the renewal was deferred during a budget cycle, or the agency was waiting to see how the Nuance / Microsoft channel would settle after the acquisition.

If your M&S has lapsed, the first thing to do is contact us so we can check your eligibility. Sometimes we can backdate the reinstatement, and sometimes we can't. We have done backdated reinstatements for Australian Government agencies many times — it is a workflow we know well — but it is not automatic, it is not guaranteed, and Microsoft does not always approve it.

Whether a lapsed M&S can be backdated depends on:

• How long the M&S has been lapsed. The channel applies an eligibility window — the longer the lapse, the lower the likelihood of approval.
• Microsoft / Nuance approval. Backdated reinstatement requires channel approval on a case-by-case basis. Microsoft does not always approve it, and we cannot guarantee an outcome before the assessment is made.
• The catch-up cost. Where reinstatement is approved, agencies typically have to pay for the lapsed period as well as the new renewal period.
• Your original purchase position — seat count, original licence date, version held, and prior renewal history.

Where backdating is not approved, the path back to support coverage is to purchase new licences with fresh M&S — we will quote that option alongside the reinstatement attempt so you can compare both before committing.

Training — Australian Government use of Dragon Professional Group

Renewing the software is only part of the picture. The other part is making sure the people using it actually know how to use it. Across the 26 years Voice Recognition Australia has been the authorised Australian reseller, we have delivered Dragon Professional Group training to every major federal department that runs the product.

Training is delivered two ways:

• One-on-one user training — sessions tailored to the individual user's role, workflow, and any reasonable-adjustment requirements under the agency's accessibility programme. Most Australian Government users we train have a specific document workflow (clinical notes, legal drafting, briefs, parliamentary correspondence, ministerial submissions) and the training is built around that workflow rather than around the generic Dragon feature set.
• Remote training — delivered over secure remote session for agencies with users in regional offices, secure facilities, or hybrid working arrangements. Remote sessions are typically used for follow-up training, advanced commands, custom vocabulary configuration, and integration with the user's specific applications.

Training is quoted separately from renewal pricing. Many agencies bundle a refresh training programme with their annual M&S renewal — particularly where the user base has rotated and new staff are inheriting Dragon profiles from previous users without ever having been trained on the product themselves. If this is your situation, mention it at quote stage.

Are you renewing Dragon Professional Group or Dragon Professional Anywhere?

Some agencies are not sure which product they hold. The distinction matters because the renewal mechanics are different.

Dragon Professional Group (DPG) is the perpetual-licence edition. Dictation is processed locally on the user's Windows workstation. The licences are owned outright; M&S is renewed annually. This is what most established Australian Government Dragon deployments are.

Dragon Professional Anywhere (DPA) is the cloud-hosted subscription edition. Dictation is processed in the Nuance / Microsoft cloud; user profiles roam between devices. There is no separate M&S — updates and support are included in the annual subscription. Renewal is a straight subscription extension.

If you are unsure which one your agency holds, send through whatever purchase records or licence-server details you have and we will confirm at quote stage. We renew both products and the same quote-request form works for either.

Our Australian Government experience

Voice Recognition Australia has been the authorised Nuance / Microsoft channel reseller for Dragon Professional Group in Australia continuously since 1999 — through the Nuance corporate ownership era, the Microsoft acquisition in 2022, and the post-acquisition channel reorganisation. The authorisation has been maintained without interruption.

Across that 26-year period we have processed Dragon Professional Group Maintenance & Support renewals for the majority of Australian Government departments and agencies that use the product. Named customers include the Federal Parliament at Parliament House, the Parliament of New South Wales and other state and territory parliaments, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, NSW Health, Queensland Health and other state health departments, federal courts and tribunals, and the major federal departments and agencies that run Dragon Professional Group in production.

By renewal volume of Dragon Professional Group Maintenance & Support transacted through the Australian channel, Voice Recognition Australia is the largest supplier of this product to Australian Government.

Procurement and compliance

• Australian company. Voice Recognition Australia Pty Ltd. Australian-owned, Australian-operated, registered for GST, full ABN. All renewals invoiced in AUD on tax-compliant invoices.
• Procurement instruments. We transact through direct purchase order, agency panel arrangements, eMarketplace, and government P-card for sub-threshold renewals. If your agency requires us to be listed on a specific panel we are not currently on, contact us and we will advise on the available routes.
• Data residency. Dragon Professional Group perpetual processes dictation locally on the workstation — no audio leaves the device by default. Dragon Professional Anywhere processes audio in the Nuance / Microsoft cloud; current hosting region documentation is available on request for inclusion in your ISM assessment.
• Australian support. Quotes, channel processing, and renewal confirmation are handled by Voice Recognition Australia staff in Australia. Vendor-side support escalations go through the Nuance / Microsoft support framework under your M&S entitlement.

Frequently asked questions