Microsoft, the maker of Windows 11, which has been much in the news over the last 2 months, is all set to hike prices of a product that will majorly impact as many as 300 million users.
Windows 11 has been much in the news and Microsoft has been basking under the feelgood coverage that it is getting from almost all quarters. Everyone is interested in Windows 11 and are checking it out minutely. The Windows Insider programme is keeping the newsflow going strong and Microsoft itself is driving the hype through regular updates. However, what is less known is the fact that Microsoft is all set to hike the price of one of its products and as many as 300 million face the prospect of paying more.
Microsoft has announced that it was changing the price of its cloud-backed subscription service, Microsoft 365. These new changes in pricing will affect users across the world for the first time since the online products were launched and will cover the company’s premium plans for services like Office, Teams and Outlook. The services offered by the company also include a set of offline apps that allow syncing with Microsoft's cloud services.
The Windows 11 creator explains that the changes to its cloud services will affect commercial users, which means that those companies that subscribed to Microsoft 365 (with an estimated 300 million users, according to Express UK) will have to pay more for its services. These services are charged at a fixed rate per user and will see a price increase of $1 to $4, depending on the location a user is in and what plan the company has already selected.
Microsoft is terming the changes the “first substantive pricing update” since it launched Office 365 a decade ago. Office 365 was later rebranded as Microsoft 365 to incorporate more services like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Exchange, Teams, OneDrive, Lens, Access and more. Corporate customers will have around half a year, until March 2022, when the new pricing will take effect and they will have to pay more. They can either move to another service, or continue with Microsoft 365 while paying the revised prices.
In what will come as a relief to many users, consumers who are relying on the corporate plans of Microsoft 365, will not be charged a new rate, according to Microsoft. This means that users who subscribe to services like OneDrive, Office and Outlook shouldn’t see an increase in fees in the next year.