Microsoft will increase prices for Azure Australia, reportedly by 26 percent.
"Microsoft continues to evaluate the market conditions in the countries in which we operate. As a result, we will be adjusting the prices for the company’s enterprise cloud services in Australia, starting 1 August 2015," a Microsoft Australia spokesperson told CRN.
David Markus, managing director of Melbourne-based Combo – a two-time CRN Fast50 company – said charges would go up 26 percent in a blog post on the SmartCompany website, speculating that Microsoft had made the move on the basis of a stronger US dollar.
Markus questioned the decision. "This is a justification that is easy to make when sitting at a board table in America, but I would love to hear in the comments below what the Australian market place thinks of this – given the technology being used is sitting on Australian soil in local data centres and the set-up cost is a sunk cost.
"Should Microsoft be driving the price up here as they would have for licensing being sold out of the USA or a hardware vendor would for imported hardware?"
Markus said Microsoft is one of many vendors under pressure to increase Australian pricing. CRN has reported price increases from Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and Apple this year.
In April, technology analyst firm Gartner predicted that global IT spending would shrink by 1.3 percent, due to the strong US dollar putting off customers.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
