Two big announcements from Microsoft and what they mean for your customers

This month, we have some major Microsoft news to bring you up to speed on. One’s about pricing, the other’s about a new add-on for M365.

First off, harmonised pricing for cloud services

Having first mentioned it in October 2022, Microsoft has now clarified its globally harmonised price increase model for cloud services.

It’s implementing a ‘defined and transparent cadence’. That means Microsoft will align cloud prices globally to US dollar levels and OnPrem pricing across regions.

The advantage in this for your customers is that wherever they’re based, the prices they pay for Microsoft Cloud services will be consistent across currencies – and therefore easy to predict and plan for.

How will this work?

Microsoft will update its prices twice a year – in February and September – and announce which currencies are affected 60 days ahead of time. Here at Westcoast Cloud, we’ll be able to preview the rises and their implications for customers 30 days ahead of those announcements. This means that you’ll be able to give your customers the heads up three months ahead of the price change effective date.

Which products and licence types does the harmonisation apply to?

It applies to any products ordered through a cloud solution provider (CSP) and all licence types, meaning customers across the commercial, educational and not for profit (NFP) sectors are all included.

The change became effective in April 2023, so is up and running now. Customers who added licences to products ordered before the price increase date are protected from any increases until their renewal date.

In practice, this means that future pricing adjustments will apply to the Euro, Swedish Krona, Norwegian Krone, Danish Krone and British Pound. They’ll kick in when customers buy or renew commercial cloud services for:

• Enterprise Agreement (EA) (commercial, government and enrolment for education solutions)
• Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E) – applies to seat-based offers
• CSP with MCA – applies to seat-based offers (commercial, government and education solutions)
• CSP legacy
• Open Value (commercial, government and education solutions)
• Open Value Subscription (commercial, government and education solutions)
• Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (commercial, government and academic)
• Microsoft Online Services Portal
• MCA Online

 Multi-Geo Capabilities add-on available imminently

The Multi-Geo Capabilities add-on will let enterprise agreement customers expand their Microsoft 365 use to multiple geographic regions within a single existing Microsoft 365 Tenant.

You’ll be able to offer the add-on to your customers from 1 June 2023.

Who does this benefit?

Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is great news for customers who store data in multiple geographies and therefore have data residency requirements to satisfy. You can now equip them to manage their data-at-rest locations at a granular level for users across SharePoint sites, Microsoft 365 Group and Microsoft Teams.

An add-on SKU in the CSP new commerce experience (NCE), Multi-Geo is available in three purchase options:

• One-month trial subscription
• One-year subscription paid monthly
• One-year subscription paid annually

When providing Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo to any client, the number of licences your purchase will need to be at least equal to 5% of that customer’s total eligible Microsoft 365 subscription seats.

More updates expected

As we write this, we’re looking out for a raft of further updates, specifically on: three-year NCE commercial SKUs, education / NFP NCE release date, breadth economics, and the EA minimum requirement change.

As soon as these come in, we’ll share them with you. Until then, if you have any questions, drop an email over to Tom.Marwood@wc-stg.ouronlineserver.com.