Microsoft is not rethinking its decision to increase the cost of its volume Service Provider License Agreements (SPLA) across Europe from July (as part of its strategy to align prices to the Euro), but it is giving existing customers a six month breather before the hike kicks in.
While new signers will pay the higher price as of July 1, existing customers will maintain their current levels until December 31, according to reports in Channel Register. Although the SPLA is just one of Microsoft’s licencing programmes, the news is likely to drive a short term uptick in sales in order to beat the July 1 (and then the December 31) deadline, followed by a slowdown, which will do nothing for consistency of sales. The move will effect some resellers and hosting providers. The principal shows that where hosting providers are concerned (and we can extend that to all types of cloud services providers), it highlights the need for robust business models that can cope with change. That level of robustness has still to be proven for many providers.