Microsoft will be producing modifications to its Windows Server pricing in January 2011 that may impact firms which are inside the business hosting company.As of January one, Microsoft is going to be chopping the cost of numerous of its Windows Server SKUs — Server 2008 R2 Web,
Office 2007, Standard and Enterprise — by 21 percent for those who purchase Windows Server via a Service Provider Licensing Agreement (SPLA). At the same time, Microsoft will likely be raising the price of one SKU — Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter — by 30 percent, come January 1. The adjustments affect only those licensing via the SPLA and not any other volume-licensing agreement,
Office 2007 Key, according to the company.Microsoft is attributing the price change to a desire to “better align SPLA prices with subscription prices.”Business officials also are positioning the 30 percent cost increase on Datacenter, which includes unlimited virtualization rights, as a price decrease. Since the Datacenter SKU was launched, “server capacity in terms of cores has doubled, significantly increasing the performance value,
Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007,” according to officials.More from an MSDN blog post explaining the adjustments:“Why is the cost of Windows Server 2008 DataCenter (WS DC) for SPLA companies going up? Truth be told,
Office 2010 Key, it’s going down. That’s not PR spin or some hocus-pocus math factoring Moore’s Law. The current cost for SPLA on WS DC is a limited promotional cost. The original announced price was almost double. MSFT deferred the implementation of the full cost in 2009 and again in 2010. As we have moved closer to January 1, 2011, feedback on the implementation of the full price was as consistent as it was intense. That feedback compelled us to look at the non-promotional WS DC price again.“After a lot of math, a lot of feedback,
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, and more math, we made a decision to lower the January 1st cost on DC. Specifically, instead of retiring the promotional cost and doubling the price, we have landed on a much more modest increase of 30% which we think might be welcome news to our service provider partners when considering the original plan.”Any service companies have any feedback — positive or not — on Microsoft;s planned pricing adjustments?