Microsoft Acknowledges Price Increases Coming For Office 2019 And Windows 10 Enterprise Users

Microsoft will make some changes in prices and names from its price list of October 2018 that will affect some customers of Windows 10 and Office 2019. This is what is in store.

Microsoft has price increases in the store for some of its Office and Windows clients as of October 1, 2018.

Microsoft officials acknowledged the next increases.

Office 2019, the next local version of the Office clients and servers that Microsoft is currently testing before its release later this year, will see 10 percent increases over current local prices. This price increase is for commercial (business) customers and will affect the Office client, the Enterprise Client Access License (CAL), Core CAL and server products, authorities said.

Microsoft is also rethinking how it refers to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and the related prices.

Starting in October, Microsoft will use the name E3 for the version per user (not the device). Windows 10 Enterprise E3 per User will be renamed "Windows 10 Enterprise E3". And the current Windows 10 Enterprise E3 by Device will be renamed "Windows 10 Enterprise".

According to the Microsoft blog post, the price of Windows 10 Enterprise will be increased to match the price of Windows 10 Enterprise E3. Windows 10 Enterprise E3 costs $ 84 per user per year. Microsoft will also suspend Windows 10 Enterprise E5 per device as of October 1, 2018. Only the per-user version will be maintained, which costs $ 14 per user per month, or $ 168 per user per year.

Based on the Microsoft blog post, I do not think the designation of Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 or E5 is affected. I have asked if there will be any price increase; There is no news yet. Update: A spokesperson for the company said the company had no comment on whether this means a price increase for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft originally introduced Windows 10 Enterprise subscription plans (E3 and E5) at its global partner conference in 2016. Microsoft's plan was to use these subscription packages to try to win more small and medium-sized customers (SMB).

Microsoft officials said in the blog post today that the changes are intended to create more consistency and transparency in the purchasing channels. Other changes that will be on the October price list:

•     Establishment of a single starting price and consistent in all programs aligned with web direct for online services (OLS)
•     Elimination of programmatic volume discounts (level A and open level C) in Enterprise Agreement (EA) / EA Subscription, MPSA, Select / Select Plus and open programs (Open, Open Value, Open Value Subscription)
•     Alignment of government prices for local services and in line with the lowest commercial price in EA / EAS, MPSA, Select Plus and Open Programs
•     Delivery of a price sheet for the newly designed customer that best describes how a customer's price was derived (only EA / EAS direct)

Microsoft told its reseller partners at its recent Inspire partner conference that it was moving toward the goal of providing "a consistent set of offers, backed by a Modern Commerce platform" in this upcoming fiscal year. (New buzzword of the year nominated by me: modern!)

By updating the discount policies designed to sell software to scale, Microsoft officials said they will no longer "incentivize (customers) to unnecessarily standardize the software."