Microsoft to increase its first substantive commercial pricing rise for Microsoft 365. Since the company launched Office 365 a decade ago, we look at the added benefits and value and the justification behind the price changes.
Six Months Ago
Microsoft made its official announcements about which prices it would change and by how much in August 2021. The new prices for its commercial products come into effect on March 1, 2022. They range from increases of 9 per cent to 25 per cent depending on the product. However, as the company points out, some considerable value has been added to it’s services the last 10 years, that may more than justify the increases.
Value-Adding Innovation Over 10 Years
It would be hard to disagree that Microsoft 365 has improved its products over the last 10 years. Mostly thanks to re-investment and keeping its products relevant to business needs. Since the introduction of 365, the company has added no less than 1,400 features, and 24 apps to the suites!
Security
One very important challenge for organizations, is to tackle cyber security. Both for business continuity and compliance. In fairness, Microsoft 365 has added plenty of security capabilities over the years. Mostly to keep businesses ahead of prevailing threats. For example, data loss prevention (DLP) for email and documents, sensitivity labels, and message encryption help guard valuable company data. As well as eDiscovery, and core Litigation Hold to help with compliance.
The Hybrid Working Security Challenge
Hybrid working has proven to be another big challenge to security for businesses and organizations around the world. On this point, Microsoft’s “Built-in mobile device management (MDM) and Microsoft Endpoint Manager, help admins support remote and hybrid workforces.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is a technology that’s transforming many areas of business automation. Microsoft has also added many AI elements to 365. For example, cloud-powered AI helps create maps, charts, and tables in Excel, as well as sorting and uncluttering Outlook. Plus, AI-powered real-time translation, captions, and transcription have now been added to improve collaboration and communication.
Competition
There are, of course, other cloud-based productivity suite options for businesses. This includes browser-centric Google Workspace, Zoho Workspace, and more. For most businesses it’s a case of finding the best fit. As the marketing people at Microsoft know all too well. The company has considerable supplier power but there’s always competitive rivalry. Threats of substitution, and its price rise can’t just be based on its market power.
Teams
It would also be difficult not to note the important contribution that Microsoft Teams has made to many businesses. Especially during the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Although not the only collaborative working platform around (e.g. Zoom, Slack) Microsoft Teams proved to be the right solution at the right time. This provided a practical way forward at the most uncertain time in living memory.
With staff suddenly finding themselves working remotely, businesses having to adapt and teams already being part of Microsoft’s suite, it proved very popular. In fact, before December 2019 it was reported as having 20 million daily active users. When the first lockdown hit in March 2020, Microsoft reported that Teams saw a massive 12 million user boost in one week!
Teams Boosts
Microsoft has boosted the power and value of Teams. By introducing features like real-time collaboration in Word, Excel, PowerPoint desktop apps. Also adding and expanding OneDrive cloud storage. In addition, dial-in capabilities for Teams have also been introduced across Microsoft’s enterprise. All for business, frontline, and government suites.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Price increases are never great news for businesses but after such a long time with no substantive increases, it was to be expected. 10 years is a particularly long time in the tech world. Many huge changes can take place and there’s no doubt that Microsoft has invested in (and improved) Office 365. This has transformed it into the Microsoft 365 of today. The use of the cloud and apps like Teams have proven vital over the lasts two years. Especially for remote and hybrid working. Microsoft points out, continuous innovation has been the way that it has tried to keep its products relevant. This is the key justification behind its March commercial price rises.
