Long time partner, since around 2004. We have run and grown our business on the IUR available and been very grateful for them. I have no issue with the removal of the IUR for our business and paying our way now that we’re bigger and can afford it but…
1) Should only remove for businesses of a certain size, startups should still be able to use IUR or it will drive to competitors like GoogleDocs, etc, etc
2) The timing of it all is completely unacceptable and in my opinion the most understated piece of Microsoft’s complete lack of thinking around marketing and communication in a long time – and thats saying something!
They state the date that it will be finished is July2020 which doesn’t sound so bad, but that’s the completion date for the change of all partners. Every partner renewal from August 1st 2019 has it take effect and our Partner renewal is August 2nd – giving us about 3 weeks to sort everything out!!!? The impact of sorting out licencing for all the various bits in use, cost evaluating it, planning migrations to Azure or other services takes time and dropping a 3 week timetable on it regardless of us now needing to find an estimated 50k per/year for what we have in use.
I spent 2 hours on the phone to Partner support on Monday, they could tell me little and the only documentation they could provide was all labelled “PREVIEW” and “subject to change”. That is just not good enough, I’ve got no time to plan this and they can’t give me a final listing of all the software changes so I don’t even know what I need to buy or if that will change in a weeks time.
This is just silly and I’m a tad frustrated.
jean
<blockquote><em><a href="#441288">In reply to jchampeau:</a></em></blockquote><p>I really only ever used Windows and Office products and occasionally a test instance of a SQL Server. Moving to O365 Business Premium will get me pretty much the same for just 12.50 USD a month (150 USD/year) – which would allow any small partner with less than 4 users to save money – even better as I also have a bunch of O365 Business Essential users licensed at 5 USD a month</p>
jean
<blockquote><em><a href="#441572">In reply to Waethorn:</a></em></blockquote><p>thanks for the advice. my M&P shop has architected and partially engineered a total of 7 end user platforms (including the backends) for 4 fortune 500 companies with more than 100'000 clients each… the verb "use" in the original context is related to "for internal use" </p>
jean
<blockquote><em><a href="#442526">In reply to Waethorn:</a></em></blockquote><p>funny – first you start calling SMBs, or specifically mine a M&P shop, without really knowing either me or my company – then you call my reply gloating again without knowing who I am and what I've done in my past – but then best of all you at least get to the conclusion that not using internal server is likely the way to run SMBs – so what's it going to be ? my 2 cents: if you are in the consulting business (likely using more than one end user device) the O365/M365 offers are a better match as the T&Cs allows you to use those licenses on more than one device as opposed to the 10 (not so) perpetual licenses that are to be used on single devices. and a final word: I've always felt that the benefits had been mutual (for whatever reasons quality, maturity, complexity customers AND Microsoft need consultants to support the eco-system)</p>