Microsoft to hike by 13 percent its user client-access license prices as of August 1

MicrosoftSource: www.zdnet.com

As of August 1, Microsoft will raise the prices of a number of its User client-access licenses (CALs) by 13 percent.

The affected CALs are for on-premises, not cloud, products. The prices of Device CALs also won't change, according to the company.

With the User CAL, Microsoft customers buy a CAL for every user who accesses the server to use services such as file storage or printing, regardless of the number of devices they use for that access. With a Device CAL, they purchase a CAL for every device that accesses a server, regardless of the number of users who use that device to access the server.

Microsoft has notified its reseller partners of the coming price hike, and will make the new pricing known publicly when it publishes it price list preview on July 1. A May 28 Microsoft TechNet blog partner blog post entitled "Three reasons why now is a good time to upgrade your customers to Windows Server 2012 R2" made mention of the coming 13 percent price hike for Windows Server on-premises User CALs. Microsoft officials -- who declined to comment on the coming price change when I asked -- have since removed that reference from the blog post.

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