Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has officially confirmed it’ll be hiking prices for its business cloud products which include Azure, Office 365, CRM Online along with Enterprise Mobility Suite. The price increase will affect consumers in most parts of Europe, Canada, and Australia starting next month, though the company has not revealed its pricing strategy in the United States.
The information was tipped off in an email conversation between Aidan Finn, a Hyper-V Most Valuable Professional and technical sales lead for a distributor in Dublin, which revealed Microsoft’s plans to bump the prices by as much as by 26 percent in Australia, while the European Union and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members’ countries will see Azure prices up by 11 percent.
According to Finn, Microsoft says that currency fluctuations have eventually led to this decision. Hence, US pricing may not be immediately affected if the US dollar stays strong compared to the Euro.
“Microsoft periodically assesses our pricing to ensure there is reasonable alignment with the market. In light of the rapid evolution of the market for cloud services and evolving local dynamics, we can confirm that as of August 1, 2015, we will adjust prices for most enterprise cloud products within the EU/EFTA region,” Microsoft told ZDNet, confirming that UK pricing remains unaffected.
In addition, Fin also said that Office 365 prices will go up by 8-10 percent, while CRM Online and Enterprise Mobility Suite will see a price hike of 10 percent and 26 percent respectively. “The changes will not affect existing annuity volume licensing agreements but will apply to most enterprise cloud products under new or renewing contracts, ” confirms a Microsoft spokesperson.
The price hike will take effect starting August 1, which by coincidence is also the date when the company’s client-access licensing prices will rise by 13 percent for on-premise products.
Notably, the price hike will take place right after the global rollout of the forthcoming Windows 10 on July 29. The company has already announced that Windows 10 will get a price tag of $129, while its price in the UK will be £99.99 for the stand-alone version of Windows 10 Home, while its Eurozone price will be €135.
https://inferse.com/33854/windows-10-home-cost-99-uk-135-eurozone/
These are indeed crunch times for Microsoft. The company released 3 builds of its Windows 10 in a span of a single week while the Redmond giant is reportedly to deliver the RTM Build 10176 to OEMs on Monday July 13.
