Microsoft has confirmed that it will align the pricing of its Microsoft Cloud products by introducing consistent global pricing for its services.
It means that customers will have consistent pricing reflected by the exchange rate of the local currency to the US dollar (USD), which is reviewed twice a year.
Countries that use the Great British Pound (GBP), the Danish Krone (DKK), the Euro (EUR), the Norwegian Krone (NOK), and the Swedish Krona (SEK) will all see a price increase from April 1, 2023.
A Microsoft blog post states: “In the future, Microsoft will assess pricing in local currency as part of a regular twice-a-year cadence, taking into consideration currency fluctuations relative to the USD.
“This will provide increased transparency and predictability for customers globally and move to a pricing model that is most common in our industry.
“The Microsoft Cloud continues to be priced competitively, and Microsoft remains deeply committed to the success of its customers and partners.”
Microsoft has confirmed that the price increase for the following currencies will be:
- GBP: +9%
- DKK, EUR and NOK: +11%
- SEK: +15%
The company will continue to invest in its cloud services to “enable customers to innovate, consolidate and eliminate operating costs”.
The pricing increase will come into effect two months after the new Microsoft Teams Premium licence is generally available to customers.
The new licence will see many currently available features to Teams users put behind the Premium licence.
A Microsoft 365 admin blog stated: “Microsoft Teams Premium is a Teams add-on license that allows organisations with Microsoft 365 subscriptions to enhance their Teams experience with benefits like more personalised and intelligent meetings and webinars, enhanced protection for meetings, advanced management and reporting capabilities for IT and advanced Virtual Appointments.”
At Ignite 2022 in October, Microsoft announced several innovations to Microsoft Cloud.
During the event, Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, divided the updates into “five key imperatives”: Microsoft Azure, automation and AI, cloud developer platform, Microsoft 365, and security.
Nadella said: “Organisations in every industry are turning to you and your digital capability to help them do more with less so that they can navigate this change and emerge strong.
“You are the change agents who make doing more with less possible less time, less cost, less complexity, with more innovation, more agility and more resilience.
“Doing more with less doesn’t mean working harder or longer. It’s not going to scale. It means applying technology to amplify what you can do and, ultimately, what an organisation can achieve amidst today’s constraints.
“Over the past few years, they have talked extensively about digital transformation, but today we need to deliver on the digital imperative for every organisation.
“It all comes down to how we can help you do this with the Microsoft Cloud. No other cloud offers category products and the best suite solutions. That is what we will focus on at Ignite this week as we walk through the five key imperatives.”
In total, Microsoft introduced more than 100 updates across the Microsoft Cloud at Ignite2022 “in order to help you do more with less”.
