14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is preparing a price increase for Office 365 enterprise customers, with customers who do not have a software assurance plan to experience a 15 percent hike starting with August.
The story came via ITProPortal who is also reporting that customers with a software assurance plan won’t be affected by the price increase now or when they renew their contracts.
And, in order to cool the effect of the price increase, Microsoft is also planning some big discounts for subscriptions in order to make the cloud-based service still affordable to all customers.
“The vast majority of our customers will not see an increase in the cost of Office 365. All existing Office 365 EA customers are guaranteed prices will not change for the duration of their agreement,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“New Office 365 EA customers who don't have a previous investment in our products will see an increase to align our pricing to our other channels. We are always evaluating our pricing to maximize the value to our customers as we continue to add more features and benefits to Office 365.”
The same source is adding that an Office 365 E1 subscription will have a price tag of $8 (€6.5), while E3 and E4 will be a bit more expensive and will cost $20 (€17) and $22 (€19.5) respectively.
We’ve also contacted Microsoft for more details on this and we’ll update the article accordingly when we get more information.