Succumbing to macroeconomic headwinds, Microsoft India announced an 11 per cent hike for its software and services in India. Citing currency fluctuations, Microsoft noted, “Indian rupee pricelist changes to harmonise its prices for commercial on-premises software and online services between India and the Asian region, effective February 1, 2023”.
“Starting February 1, 2023, Indian rupee prices for commercial on-premises software will increase by 4.5 per cent, online services will increase by 9 per cent, and Windows GGWA will increase by 11 per cent to realign close to prevailing USD pricing levels in the Asian region,” said Microsoft in an official announcement.
For business customers, these changes will not affect existing orders under licensing agreements for products that are subject to price protection, according to the company.
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However, prices for new products added under licensing agreements and purchases under new contracts will be determined by the pricelist at the time of ordering.
Microsoft is one of the leading enterprise service providers, especially on public clouds in the world and in India as well. Therefore, Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst, Founder, and CEO, Greyhound Research, notes that Indian SMEs are likely to feel the pinch of the price hikes. “While the cost of service on cloud is becoming high, necessitating these hikes, any hike of this nature is a cause of grave concern for customers who are already pinched by existing costs. With recessionary pressures on Indian enterprises as well, these hikes are not good news. The question is do customers who have invested in Microsoft for so long, even have a choice to switch cloud providers?”
However, Gogia warned that Microsoft should expect pushback in the form of cost repatriation as customers move from the public cloud to the cheaper private or hybrid clouds.
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Published on December 5, 2022
