As CRN sister site Channelnomics.eu reported, Microsoft IT pro Aidan Finn published a series of excerpts from Microsoft emails on his blog, which appear to outline details of the upcoming price hikes on Azure kit in the Eurozone.
Advertisement
But the e-mail message also said customers or partners who had purchased Azure through enterprise agreements, enterprise subscription agreements, or server and cloud enrolments “have price protection on now offered Azure services and will receive the better of their baseline price or the new market price”.
“Microsoft periodically assesses the impact of its local pricing to ensure there is a reasonable alignment with the needs of customers, partners, and the marketplace, and may make changes in response to its assessment and feedback”.
Microsoft says that it will be raising its Azure prices by 13% in regions that are billed in Euros. “As a result, we will be adjusting the prices for the company’s enterprise cloud services in Australia, starting 1 August, 2015”. However, V3 understands that it is set to affect the Euro zone and Australia. “Until July 31 2015 customers can continue to acquire Microsoft cloud products at current prices, as well as renew licensing agreements at current prices before the adjustment”.
It should be noted that some users within these regions will not see a price increase at all. The Euro also has its problems, as anyone familiar with the Greek debt crisis will be keenly aware of.
The move comes shortly after the Google Cloud Platform dropped its prices and will no doubt affect Microsoft’s standing in the cloud market. When Microsoft started operating in Australia, one Australian dollar bought 94 USA cents.
Microsoft is not the only vendor to up its European prices recently – back in January, HP upped its United Kingdom prices by 6.5 per cent to mitigate currency issues.
Advertisement
It’s been a wild ride the past couple years, with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft bidding to become the cheapest service in the Cloud.
