Microsoft to increase cloud price of Azure, Office 365 and more

Staff Writer

Cloud Enterprise

As of Aug. 1, Microsoft will be increasing the price of several “enterprise cloud products” in certain regions. As discovered over on ZDNet, much of Europe, Australia and Canada will be affected. The price of Azure will go up by 11 percent in the European Union and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member countries.  Australia will also see a 26 percent after August 1, 2015.

Aside from Azure, the price of  Office 365, CRM Online, Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) and “other enterprise online services” also will be going up. It is believed that Office 365 will increase in price by 8 to 10 percent. CRM Online will go up by 10 percent and EMS by 26 percent.

A Microsoft spokesman said, “we periodically assesses our pricing to ensure there is reasonable alignment with the market”. “Rapid evolution of the market for cloud services and evolving local dynamics”, according to Microsoft, are driving the  change. For now, the UK will escape any Azure related increases.

On a related note, Aug. 1 is when Microsoft’s client-access licensing (CAL) prices increase by 13 percent for a number of its on-premises products.