Hi drew at NF,
I checked in with our support team to confirm, and get an answer to your question.
If you have active maintenance during the time of release then you would be entitled to latest version.
Here's an example, if a customer has Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition 10.x or Symantec EndPoint Protection 11.x they are not able to upgrade to Symantec EndPoint Protection Small Business Edition; two different products. A potential cross-grade, but the customer would need to speak with their sales rep or reseller.
If customer has the SEP SBE as a renewal the serial number when registered will provide a license file; however if this were a new purchase it would not create a license file. The license file is designed to work on SAV SMB 10.1/10.2.
SAV CE and SEP are Volume licenses and do not require a license file to function like SAV SMB. When they changed the license model for SAV SMB to SEP SBE it too would not need a license to function.
With the release of SEP 12.0 the only portion that will require a license file will be the SEP Manager. The SEP Manager is used when the customer wants to have a managed environment.
If you can provide us with a customer number, certificate number or serial number I would be happy to check our database for their entitlement. Send me a PM with the info.
Best,
Eric