Bowing to the inevitable
Microsoft has been threatening to shift to a subscription model for its software for a while. At its latest Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) it announced a couple of new suites of subscription services that are accessed through its software + services paradigm and which command a monthly fee.
The good news for the channel is that resellers get an ongoing cut of the fee, but the bad news is that the UK channel won’t be able to start selling them until early next year.
The first of the launches was a “Deskless Suite” that is actually a combination of Exchange Online Deskless and SharePoint Online Deskless. As you may have gathered by now, it’s designed to meet the needs of deskless workers (why not just sell them a desk? – Ed).
It provides online access to the following: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, Office Live Meeting, and Dynamics CRM Online. The only pricing Microsoft is offering for the time being is in US dollars and this suite will cost you three of them per month. Your guess is as good as ours what the GBP figure will be, but we would give short odds on three.