Microsoft prepares for summer price hike

On-premise User CALs to jump 15 per cent in the summer

Microsoft is set to increase the price of some of its licences by about 15 per cent in the summer.

From 1 July – the start of the vendor's FY16 – the price of on-premise User Client Access Licences (CALs) will jump 15 per cent when priced per user.

All volume licensing programmes – including academic and government – will be included in the price boost, but those buying CALs on fixed-price contracts such as Enterprise Agreements will not.

In a blog post to customers issued this morning, reseller Softcat said there are ways to avoid the hikes.

It said signing a new fixed-price agreement before 1 July would be one option, as would licensing CALs on a per-device basis instead, as these are not affected. Moving to the cloud would be another way to avoid the extra cost, Softcat said.

"[Customers can] purchase cloud suites – Office 365 Enterprise, Enterprise Mobility Suite and Enterprise Cloud Suite – that provide dual access to both online services and on-premises server software," the reseller said. "With this option, customers will also benefit from additional enterprise functionality and a user-centric licensing model. [They could also] lock in the price of any additional user CAL products that they require over the course of their agreement before the price increase."

In a statement sent to CRN, Microsoft said: "Microsoft is committed to sharing pricing and licensing updates to our customers and partners to ensure they are prepared and able to evaluate their options.

"We always evaluate current market conditions, the increased product value for a customer, customer deployment scenarios and other factors when determining pricing for our products and services. Customers that purchase the Enterprise Cloud Suite will not be affected by the User CAL price increase, as per-user licensing is already incorporated into cost of the suite."