How will the Microsoft price increase affect YOU? Breaking down the jargon!
There is an awful lot written on Microsoft's price increases without much being said about how it will actually affect customers. The rumours are true and prices WILL increase by anything from 13-22% across volume licensing and cloud services, but the intricacies and practicalities of this haven't been well communicated by anyone!
At Storm, we've picked out 3 common scenarios that our customers are likely to encounter, what will happen and what to do in each case:
- You're looking to buy into a service, but haven't pulled the trigger...yet
Our advice is to act now! The below excerpt is from Microsoft's published FAQ for customers:
Starting January 1, 2017 British pound prices for on-premises enterprise software will increase by 13% to realign close to euro levels. Most enterprise cloud prices in British pound will increase by 22%...
This means that if you buy anything in the new year, this will be subject to the price increase, but before you could potentially lock yourself in for 1, 2 or 3 years at the current pricing. Speak to your account manager or Storm's Software Licensing and Cloud team now if you have anything you could push forward!
2. You're currently on an agreement...but what about your renewal date?
With so many agreement types it's hard to keep track of what's going to happen. Typically if you have an agreement where you have a commitment in place (MPSA, EA, OV/S), at renewal (mid-term) you'll be subject to the same price you opened up the agreement. If you're coming to end of term however, in the new year the agreement will be subject to the price increases, likewise with any new services/workloads.
Again, the action to take if you have any concerns would be to talk to your account manager or speak to Storm's Software Licensing and Cloud team to find out more.
3. I'm paying monthly, what happens to me?
If you're currently paying monthly direct with Microsoft, your pricing will go up on January 1st. You can solve this by moving to a CSP (Cloud Solutions Provider) model with Storm, where we can manage your billing and make sure your pricing is locked for a year from when you start the subscription:
Cloud Solution Program (CSP): Existing subscriptions receive price protection during their term which is normally twelve months from the start of paid subscription.
You'll still have the benefits of paying monthly without any cost concerns and this will effectively stave off the pricing increase for a year!
If you're currently on CSP with Storm there's no need to worry - we'll make sure you have price protection on all workloads for a year from when you started your subscription: if you started in October, we'll make sure you don't see any price increase until October 2017! If you're looking at any new workloads however, take action before the year ends to gain price protection:
Additional CSP seats to an existing subscription after January 1, 2017 will be at the previous billing price which remains in place for the remaining twelve-month term purchased before January 1, 2017.
Our recommendation once again is to act now and speak to your account manager or our cloud team to find out how it's really going to affect you!
Get in touch today!
We're sure you'll have questions so please get in touch today to see if you can save yourself time, money and a headache by letting us guide you through this confusing time! Contact cloud@storm-technologies.com today!