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Service Update: Microsoft 365 Fees Increase on January 1, 2023

Cumulus Global 15 Years of ServiceService Update: Microsoft 365 Fees Increase on January 1, 2023.

As previously announced by Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Fees Increase on January 1, 2023.  In addition to increased fees for specific licenses, Microsoft is changing the structure of annual agreements and adding a 20% surcharge for month-to-month licensing.

Why Now?

Microsoft has been working towards these changes for more than a year. They company pushed back the deadline several times as the change coincided with major changes to Microsoft’s partner program. Microsoft has notified customers and partners that all subscriptions will be on the new pricing as of January 1, 2023.

For our customers, Cumulus Global has delayed the impact and fee increases for as long as possible.  We are communicating with our customers individually to address the final deadline.

New Terms and Conditions

With the pricing changes, Microsoft is also changing some of the terms and conditions for the services.  Historically, Microsoft has not enforced commitments on annual agreements; customer were free to change user counts and even cancel without penalty. Going forward, Microsoft will enforce annual subscriptions and terms as firm commitments. Customers may change or cancel within three (3) days of starting an annual term. Customer commit to the number of licenses for the full year. Microsoft is offering a three year commitment option as well, which secures pricing for that period.

If you need or want the flexibility of increasing and decreasing user counts at any time, you will need to opt for month-to-month licenses.  Monthly licensing lacks the commitment but includes a 20% surcharge over fees for an annual commitment.

License Pricing Changes

The following are the fee changes for annual licensing. All fees are listed as per user per month.

  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic
    • Annual: From $5 to $6
    • Monthly: $7.20
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    • Annual: From $20 to $22
    • Monthly:  $26.40
  • Office 365 E1
    • Annual: From $8 to $10
    • Monthly: $12
  • Office 365 E3
    • Annual: From $20 to $23
    • Monthly: $27.6
  • Office 365 E5
    • Annual: From $35 to $38
    • Monthly: $45.60
  • Microsoft 365 E3
    • Annual: From $32 to $36
    • Monthly: $43.20

All other Microsoft 365 and Office 365 license fees remain this same with an annual commitment; monthly fees will reflect the 20% surcharge.

Next Steps

Our team is contacting each our customers impacted by the pricing to discuss their options and plan their services going forward.

As we are here to assist any small business with their cloud services, feel free to contact us by email, via our website, or by scheduling time directly with one of our Cloud Advisors to discuss your options and path forward.

Managing Chrome the Education Upgrade Price Increase

On January 22, 2020, Google is informing all Chrome Education Upgrade (aka Chrome Management Service) users that that perpetual per-device license price is increasing from $30 to $38 dollars, effective March 9, 2020.

While Google is not unreasonable in raising prices to ensure continued innovation and feature expansion, the timing of the increase is problematic for many schools.  With fiscal years starting July 1, schools and districts have drafted or completed their budgets for the upcoming year.  The timing of the increase impacts purchases planned for the end of this fiscal/school year as well.

Cumulus Global will help you manage the price increase.

You can order your Chrome Education Upgrade / Management licenses now, before the price increase.  Based on your quantity, we are offering discounts up to 10% or more off the current $30 price.  If you are unable to purchase the licenses now, you can also request a binding quote and receive similar discounts off the $38 price through August 31, 2020.

Please complete the form, below, and request your quote.


Request your quote …

G Suite Price Hike: Your Next Steps

G SuiteAnytime a vendor critical to your business changes their product and pricing, it is tempting to reassess. We may see the world differently than other IT providers, but we, the team at Cumulus Global, strongly agree.  Now is a good time to examine your cloud services, as part of your full IT ecosystem, and determine if it is the right time to make a change for the better.

Step 1: Look Inward: Utilization

The first step is to look at your current service, and evaluate how well you are using its capabilities to operate and improve your business. By looking at your utilization today and what features and capabilities you expect to use in the future, you can decide if your current subscription is best or if you should consider an upgrade.

If you are running G Suite Basic or G Suite Business:

  • Are you using it solely for email, calendars, or contacts or are your using the collaboration features?  
  • Does Drive, or can Drive and Team Drives, serve as your primary file service?  
  • Are you paying for separate services, such as teleconferencing and web/video conferencing, that are included within G Suite at no additional cost?

Understanding the capabilities of each G Suite subscription and asking the right questions, you assess how you will use G Suite going forward.  Contact us, we are here to help.

Step 2: Look Outward

Currently, about 30% of our client migrations to G Suite and Office 365 are from another cloud service, not from on-premise or hosted email servers.  While this number may be surprising to some, for us it makes sense. Companies that moved to G Suite or Office 365 several years ago are looking at how the cloud has advanced how their businesses have changed, and how their overall IT needs and services have evolved.  

Is now the time to switch?

The decision to switch from G Suite to Office 365, or vice versa, makes solid business sense for for some of our current and prospective clients. For some, they remain reliant on the desktop MS Office suite and want better integration. For others, they have business apps running on MS SQL Server and want the integrated business intelligence and analytic capabilities of Office 365. For still others, a unified security infrastructure covering desktops, laptops, and mobile devices is the driving need.

If you think switching is a worthwhile consideration, we are offering our Productivity Cloud Assessment and Recommendations at no cost through March 31, 2019.  Complete our Cloud Productivity Questionnaire and we will schedule a Cloud Advisor Session and present you with our assessment and recommendations. The service, normally $895, will help you jump start the process for considering a change in platform.

Additionally, check out this blog post for ways to mitigate the price increase.

Step 3: Talk to Us

Whether you expect to stay the course or change directions, we are here to help. Because we partner Google, Microsoft, and dozens of other cloud providers, you get our objective assessment and recommendations. Because we understand small and midsize businesses, you will get pragmatic advice and solutions focused on your needs and desired outcomes.

Please take advantage of our experience and expertise.

Managing the Impact of the G Suite Price Increase

G SuiteTo help manage the impact of the pricing increase, we are able to offer renewal and upgrade discounts based on your current licensing. Converting from Monthly/Flex to Annual locks in the current pricing for a year. Upgrading your G Suite Version provides you a discount off the current upgrade pricing for 12 to 24 months.

Convert Monthly/Flex to Annual

  • For clients using G Suite Basic or G Suite Business on the Monthly/Flex plan, we can mitigate the increase by switching you to the annual prepaid plan before the end of March.  
  • Doing so secures the current $50 per user or $120 per user annual cost until your renewal in 2020.

G Suite Basic to Business Upgrade

  • For clients using G Suite Basic, you can take advantage of upgrade discounts to G Suite Business.
  • The discounts up to 33% off current prices based on the commitments of 12, 15, or 18 months.
  • At the end of this promotional term, your subscription resets to the new pricing.

G Suite Business to Enterprise Upgrade

  • For clients using G Suite Business, you can upgrade to G Suite Business with discounts up to 38% off current pricing, based on the term commitment of up to 24 months.  
  • At the end of this promotional term, your subscription resets to the new pricing.

While we expect additional upgrade incentives after the price increase takes effect, the above offers expire at the end of March.

To assess your G Suite service and determine if any of these options are right for you, please contact us for a Cloud Advisor Session.

G Suite Price Increase

G SuiteAs you are likely aware, Google announced a 20% price increase for G Suite Basic and G Suite Business Editions, along with a discontinuation of the discounted pricing for G Suite Basic when prepaid annually.

The Basics

Effective April 2, 2019, the pricing for G Suite Business and G Suite Basic will increase as noted in the table, below.


License

Current
As of
Apr 1, 2019
Effective
Increase
G Suite Basic, Flex/Monthly $5 / user $6 /user 20%
G Suite Basic, Annual $50 / user $72 / user 44%
G Suite Business, Flex/Monthly $10 / user $12 / user 20%
G Suite Business, Annual $120 / user $144 / user 20%

 

For organizations on the monthly/flex plan, the price increase takes effect as of April 2, 2019.

For companies on an annual plan, the price increase takes effect with your next annual renewal on or after April 2, 2019

If you took advantage of an upgrade promotion, your current pricing will remain through the end of the current 12, 15, or 18 month promotional period.

If you have a “Switch and Save” discount from Cumulus Global, your discount is a percentage off Google’s published pricing. Cumulus Global continue those percentage discounts off Google’s new pricing.

Why is Google Raising Prices?

As posted by Google:

More than a decade ago, we introduced Gmail—our first cloud-native productivity app—to help make email safer and easier for everyone. Since then, we pioneered more ways for teams to collaborate in real-time with products like Google Calendar, Docs, Drive and Hangouts. Together, these apps make up G Suite, our set of intelligent, secure productivity and collaboration tools.

We’ve brought businesses more than a dozen new G Suite services to help them reimagine how they work, including powerful video conferencing (Hangouts Meet), secure team messaging (Hangouts Chat) and enterprise-grade search capabilities(Cloud Search). We’ve also infused our products with advanced artificial intelligence to make it easier to respond to emailsgather insights from data and protect against phishing attacks before they happen.

Today, more than four million organizations use G Suite to collaborate efficiently and securely, and analysts have taken notice. IDC’s Wayne Kurtzman notes, “Google has established G Suite as a secure, enterprise-ready, AI–powered productivity and collaboration platform. With its broad set of capabilities, G Suite offers a strong value proposition to customers.”

Over the last ten years, G Suite has grown to provide more tools, functionality and value to help businesses transform the way they work.

In our opinion, G Suite still represents a good value for most businesses, particularly those moving to cloud-based applications and systems. We discuss ways to mitigate the impact of the price increase in this blog post.

Please contact us with any questions or concerns.

Microsoft: Pay More for the Same Old CALs

 

Back in July, we blogged about how Microsoft’s new server pricing model, combined with the end of the Small Business Server package, would result in significant cost increases for many small businesses (see SBS End of Life: Microsoft Punishes Small Businesses).

Starting December 1, 2012, Microsoft is increasing the pricing for User CALs (client access licenses) across most of its product lines.   The higher CAL pricing does NOT include any new or additional functionality — just a higher price.

As most readers are aware, Microsoft offers two types of client access licenses.  Device CALs allow unlimited users to connect from a single physical device.  User CALs allow a single user to access servers and services from an unlimited number of devices.  According to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet, “Microsoft has positioned User CALs as being the optimal choice if company employees need to have roaming access to the corporate network using multiple devices …”.  As such, most companies purchase User CALs.

Without adding any new features or capabilities, Microsoft is increasing the price of User CALs across all of the following products (in alphabetical order):

  • Bing Maps Server CAL
  • Core CAL Suite
  • Enterprise CAL Suite
  • Exchange Server Standard and Enterprise CALs
  • Lync Server Standard and Enterprise CALs
  • Project Server CAL
  • SharePoint Server Standard and Enterprise CALs
  • System Center 2012 Client Management Suite
  • System Center Configuration Manager
  • System Center Endpoint Protection
  • Visual Studio TFS CAL
  • Windows Multipoint Server CAL
  • Windows Server CAL
  • Windows Server RDS, RMS, Terminal Services CAL

When asked about these changes, Microsoft tells ZDNet, “These CAL changes include a user-based option that offers more value in support across unlimited devices …”

What Microsoft fails to mention, however, is that “These CAL changes” are not real changes at all — user CALs have always supported unlimited devicesThe only “change” is the higher price.

For companies with Enterprise Agreements, Software Assurance, or other volume licensing agreements, the higher prices kick in at the end of your licensing term.  For everyone else, December 1st marks the day companies will need to pay more for the same old CALs.