The upcoming 2013 release of Microsoft’s Office suite & the related products brings with it not just great new features but also price increases.
The affected products and the expected increases are:
- SharePoint Server +38%
- SharePoint 2013 Standard User CAL +15%
- Exchange 2013 Standard and Enterprise User Cals +15%
- Visio Standard 2013 +20%
- Visio Pro 2013 +5%
- Project Standard 2013 and Professional 2013 +5%
- Project Server 2013 +15%
- Lync Server +400%
An increase in price when a new version is released is quite common, with most manufacturers, but coupled with the December 1st 15% increase on user CALs and just 6 months after the up to 30% price rise relating to the Euro/GBP levelling – I do not anticipate this being well received by customers!
The big takeaway from this is *If you’re looking at purchasing these products, look at the cost of buying now with SA (as well as the extra benefits) compared to the projected costs from December onwards*.
There are also a number of licensing changes about to take effect:
Lync
Lync Server Std & Enterprise are merging into 1 SKU, with a price of around £2000+ – a significant increase over the current Lync Std price. This does bring the failover & load balancing features to all Lync 2013 organizations.
Sharepoint
Microsoft have, in many areas, moved to simplify licensing and SharePoint is another area.
FAST Search Server & Search Server are no longer separate entities, they’re now simply part of SharePoint Server 2013.
A big one here, SharePoint for Internet Sites is no more. Microsoft have done away with the (up to) £30,000+ license, which was required for external user access to SharePoint content, and rolled those licensing rights into the standard server license. From the October Product Use Rights (PUR) document:
“CAL WAIVER FOR USERS ACCESSING PUBLICLY AVAILABLE CONTENT
CALs are not required to access content, information, and applications that you make publicly available to users over the Internet (i.e., not restricted to Intranet or Extranet scenarios).”
I imagine that this will partially contribute to the increase in price we’re seeing with 2013.
Exchange
Basic Anti-Malware protection will be baked into Exchange Server 2013
External Connectors
External connector licenses have been removed for both Exchange 2013 & Lync 2013. Again from the October 2012 PUR:
“External User Access: Licensed with Server”
Visio
Again in a move to simplify the SKU line up and make it easier for customers to make the right selection, Visio Premium is being discontinued and all it’s extra features will be moved into Visio Pro 2013.
Software Assurance
Organizations who purchased any products that are due to be discontinued along with Software Assurance need not worry, your benefits will continue and you will receive access to the relevant 2013 version.
Office 365
Something that Microsoft have not mentioned much at all and have in fact been reluctant to discuss, is that Visio & Project are being made available online via Office 365. This will be of big benefit to many customers, enabling easier collaboration among staff no matter their location.
Another benefit of this may well be around Software Asset Management (SAM). It’s common to see organizations over licensed for Project & Visio, Office 365 may make it easier for them to track how many licenses they have and who they are assigned to.
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Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 