The saga continues... after taking to my trusted Apple VAR sales
rep who was on holidays the past week you can purchase the software
maintenance program until today and you are still eligible for the
Tiger upgrade.
So if you have a Panther server licence and you were planning on
buying Tiger you are better off buying the program. It makes no
sense to buy it when the new rev comes out. For example if I had
purchased it when I bought my Xserve / RAID it would have been over
a year ago. I would be almost half way through my 36 months of
upgrades and would get Tiger but not likely 10.5 (does it have a
code name yet... my bet is on Lion.). If I'm lucky I'll get 10.5
and maybe 10.6.
The bottom line is you will likely need to fight with your reseller
on this. Do not take no for an answer. If in doubt call the Apple
store direct and again don't take the initial 'no' for a final answer.