31 Mar Microsoft delays Office 365 price rise once again

Microsoft delays Office 365 price rise once again

First substantial price increase since Office 365’s launch has been postponed

Microsoft has once again delayed its planned price increase of both its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 office software suites.

The price increase was first announced by corporate VP for Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro last August in a blog post and was set to come into effect at the beginning of this month. Now though, the software giant has pushed back the change until March 15.

Right when the price increase was set to go into effect, Microsoft announced a set of temporary discounts for cloud service providers (CSPs) that sell Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. CSPs currently have until 5pm PDT on March 14 or 12am UTC on March 15 to submit transactions and have them invoiced at the company’s February 2022 pricing.

These temporary discounts are designed to allow CSPs “to clear the backlog of orders for these SKUs due to high demand in advance of the March 1 price increases” according to a Microsoft support document.

First substantive price increase

For those unfamiliar with Microsoft’s pricing changes for both Office 365 and Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $5 to $6 per user per year, Microsoft 365 Business Premium will go from $20 to $22, Office 365 E1 will go from $8 to $10, Office 365 E3 will go from $20 to $23, Office 365 E5 will go from $35 to $38 and Microsoft 365 E3 will go from $32 to $36.

Thankfully though, these pricing changes do not apply to the company’s consumer or education products.

Back in August of last year, Spataro pointed to the fact that these pricing changes were the “first substantive pricing update” to Office 365 since its launch just over a decade ago. He also highlighted how the company has added 24 apps including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard to the software suite and released 1,400 new features and capabilities across three key areas: communication and collaboration, security and compliance and AI and automation.

According to The Register, Microsoft’s revenues grew by a fifth to $51.7bn during the second fiscal quarter of this year while operating income increased by 24 percent from $17.89bn to $22.2bn. However, the company’s Microsoft Azure cloud services and its server products have been the main drivers of its higher revenue recently. As such, Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes Office 365, will need to bring in additional revenue to keep up with the company’s other divisions.

Managing your IT landscape so you don’t have to

We are a Cloud services provider, so we understand the apprehension that many feel before making the leap to Cloud computing. We take the reins when conducting your transition, allowing your company to enjoy the advanced opportunities it has to offer. We are proud to provide top quality services to our customers, preventing business disruption that can be caused by tech problems. We can assist you in deciding what approach is best for you, a full transition to Cloud computing and all the positives that come with it, an on-premise managed solution, or a hybrid of the two – whatever the case we will be sure to establish the right solution for you. Alongside our expertise in Cloud computing, our experienced and knowledgeable team at Apogee Solutions perform proactive monitoring of servers and workstations, fixing problems remotely, and dealing with security issues.

Get in contact now and see how – with the right tools, and education around their use – you and your team can take your next step into the future of IT.

Source: https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-delays-office-365-price-rise-once-again