Microsoft Increases Cost of Office Service for 2013 Releases

As of December 1, 2012, Microsoft will increase Office server prices of Visio 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Lync 2013. User client-access licenses will see a significant increase over 2010 versions.

At least part of Microsoft's motivation for the price increase is to encourage customers and businesses to make a shift from on-premises Office software to alternatives that are subscription-based or cloud-hosted. The company is adding incentive to this transition by raising the price of on-premises software while lowering the prices of subscription-based software, such as Office 365 Small Business Premium, Office 365 Home Premium and Office 365 Mid-Size Business.

According to Rich Gibbons, Software Manager at European VAR Bechtle, Microsoft will be making the price increase as of December 1 when business users will be able to purchase the final official version of Office 2013. A Microsoft Office spokesperson declined to comment on any of the prices listed in Gibbons' blog.

"An increase in price when a new version is released is quite common, with most manufacturers, but coupled with the December 1st 15% increase on user CALs and just 6 months after the up to 30% price rise relating to the Euro/GBP leveling - I do not anticipate this being well received by customers!" Gibbons posted.

In November, Lync MVP Matthew Landis blogged that Standard and Enterprise versions of Lync 2013 will remain, and will be available for the same price. Based on his post, this may also be true of SharePoint 2013.

"With the 2013 versions of Exchange Server, Lync Server and SharePoint Server, we are consolidating the right for External Users to access the server under the server license assigned to the server on which the software runs," blogged Landis.

However, Gibbons claims that the price of Lync Server 2013 could be hitched up to 400 percent more than its forerunner. He also says that Visio Standard 2013 could end up costing 20 percent more than the 2010 version.

Gibbons advises potential customers to consider buying these products before December 1 under a Software Assurance (SA) licensing agreement to avoid the price increases.

"If you have these Office products under SA currently, you will completely own the current version within the licensing conversion plans and rules. You should seriously consider whether it is necessary to renew these under SA, as many of them might not ever even have a next on-premise version (might all move to the cloud). But, if you want to continue to place your bets on what's next, Microsoft will happily take your Software Assurance payments," suggest Software Advisors. (CU) Link