Summary
Microsoft is about to uplift the prices of Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
The first thing I've noticed: Microsoft announced an increase in "direct" prices. We should expect a price lift for other licensing programs too.
Secondly, Microsoft 365 E1 became way richer compared to the original E1. Quote:
"At launch in June 2011, Microsoft 365 included Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Lync, Exchange, and InfoPath. We've since expanded to add other apps – in whole or in part – and entirely new capabilities, including Access, Bookings, Forms, Lists, OneDrive, OneNote Class Notebook, Planner, Power Apps, Power Automate, SharePoint, Staff Hub, Stream, Sway, Teams, To-Do, Whiteboard, and...."
It takes more resources and software to provide these services than initially. We now have Access, Power Apps, Planner, and modern SharePoint. These tools alone can "digitally transform" about 80%, if not more, of small and medium-sized businesses. So E1 is simply cannibalizing more expensive plans.
Thirdly, look at this quote:
"And today, we are announcing that we will add unlimited dial-in capabilities for Microsoft Teams meetings across our enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites over the next few months."
That's a killer feature in some geographies.
Forth point. Microsoft introduced the E1 plan long before the F1. Nowadays, it cannibalizes E3/E5 while effectively being part of the F-plans family, which has the same price range. If I were Microsoft, I would increase E1's price if only to position it correctly and make M365 and O365 families more logical.
Fifth and the most crucial point: O365 is an obsolete product for Microsoft. The primary one is M365, including F-plans. Given recent security incidents, from my point of view, M365 is way more effective and secure.
And it's also hard to explain to customers why they should consider switching to M365 when O365 plans are nearly equally priced.
So the king is dead. Long live the king! If I have guessed correctly, it's the start of Office 365 sunsetting.
P.S. The original official announcement is here.
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