Microsoft has a long history of confusing customers with multiple pricing models and several different agreement types. With Cloud services, some of that has been simplified on the surface, but still leaves customers typically paying more (not less) over time. Microsoft really is not in business to help their customers spend less on Microsoft, but we are. In that spirit, as many of you already know, Microsoft announced new global price increases set to go into effect March 1, 2022. In addition to the 365 increases, there are other important changes coming to their CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) partner programs that could also impact your ...
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The news has constant reminders of the risks of an unsecure infrastructure. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware event recently caused blood pressure spikes in boardrooms and C-Suites all over the world. Microsoft continues to expand their security and compliance offerings, with a dizzying and confusing array of services, bundles, and add-ons to your 365 subscriptions. As we come into June, the end of the Microsoft fiscal year, clients are getting heavy pressure from management to “do something” about the very high-risk security and compliance requirements in today’s enterprise – and Microsoft is happy to sell “solutions”. But are they really ...
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Changes in the market forcing clients to embrace Work-from-Anywhere (WFA) employees creates opportunities for clients to transform technology enablement; improving collaboration, increasing productivity and corporate knowledge management, while reducing security threats and end user computing costs (by as much as 67-75% in ideal cases). The 2020 scramble to re-equip and upgrade workers to enable productivity “from home” or “from anywhere” has changed the nature of end-user computing, maybe forever. However, our clients continue to seek ways to help employees, contractors, suppliers, and customer ecosystems to collaborate better, boosting ...
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Microsoft’s cloud services experienced a significant outage yesterday. There were reports that Microsoft’s efforts to repair the problem affected some customers for more than 6 hours. We are not yet aware of any customer data that was lost. Microsoft customers from all over the world reported significant issues with access to critical functions. In the United States, several 911 Emergency reporting facilities from Atlanta, Georgia to Tucson, Arizona were down. In addition to emergency services, virtual learning in colleges and public schools took a major hit as students, teachers, and administrators all over North America were forced to stop ...
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The initial outreach and helping hand that many IT suppliers gave at the onset of the pandemic has already faded. Most offers were not only insufficient to have a real impact, but instead locked companies into less favorable deals long-term in exchange for that short-term assistance. We recently wrote another article on this called ‘Look That Gift Horse in the Mouth’. Microsoft has thus far, in our opinion, followed this same path. Despite COVID-19 issues, Microsoft thus far is holding firm on pricing for its Office365 Enterprise Agreement renewals. Further, we see them in many cases offering ‘list price’ and no discounts at all. Breaking ...
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We’ve recently seen an uptick in interest and attention for the “Desktop as a Service” category. Spoiler Alert DaaS is just outsourcing and managed services, wrapped in a sparkly new layer of internet marketing speak. If you’re continuing to run local desktop apps that require Windows, then the fundamental TCO won't change much. In fact, your overall long-term costs per user may increase. DaaS is merely shifting the costs and spreading them around in slightly different ways. The Market There are many options and variations of this format depending on what the priorities are. Supplier options might vary depending on your security ...
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If you are like me, you have been receiving an avalanche of email notifications from every company you’ve ever done business with letting you know how they are responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Did I really need to know how my auto mechanic is responding to the epidemic? Probably not at the top of my list. However, if you can get through the noise, there have been some legitimate offers to help companies support their teams and customers through the crisis. Most of these offers are in the form of free services and software for an extended period of time (30-60-90 days and more). Below, we’ve compiled a list of twenty-three companies and ...
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Unprecedented times for business leaders now as the gears of industry and commerce are basically at a standstill. Most companies have a complete freeze on spending and are contingency planning for things to get worse before they get better. While sometimes there is ‘opportunity in chaos’ so too is the potential to make costly mistakes in our haste to facilitate immediate needs. Today, we’ll be looking at Microsoft and some issues to consider as the economy heads for a downturn. Remote Work: Although remote/home office work is a well-established trend in many industries, others are still grappling with management and cost challenges (not to ...
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Software audits have become an unfortunate but necessary revenue stream for most suppliers today. And who can really blame them? It usually works! Just as governments have now come to rely on revenue from things like speeding and parking tickets, so to have software companies come to rely on software audits to move the needle on revenue or generate fear, using pressure and leverage to create opportunities for new licensing revenue. The reasons are well known, and really haven’t changed significantly in the last few years: Competition from disruptive suppliers Migration away from perpetual licensing to subscription-based cloud solutions ...
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You may recall from our alert in July, Microsoft has substantial changes to their pricing due to take effect October 1, 2018. This pricing will cascade globally from Redmond product managers. As a result, we anticipate an incredibly busy September as customers try to understand what the impact will be and how best to optimize their agreements. The actual pricing is due to be available to resellers on September 1, 2018 and will likely become widely available soon after. In addition to the changes we previously communicated (see below), here are a few of the latest updates that have come to our attention: “Level A” is going away. Any Microsoft ...
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