Prices for First Microsoft Cloud Services
November 16, 2008
Update November 18, 2008 More cloud pricing here.
InfoWorld reported that some Microsoft cloud services will be available on Monday, November 17, 2008. You can read “Microsoft to Launch Online SharePoint, Exchange on Monday” here. The article does not address who is eligible to buy, the minimum purchase, or how this service will fit into certified partners’ hosted offerings. I continue to be skeptical about the manageability of hosted SharePoint and its performance. You may be a SharePoint fan, but I am firmly on the fence because the costs associated with getting the darn thing to deliver on the marketing promises are too rich for some of my customers. In my opinion, the most interesting part of this InfoWorld article is not the absence of answers to my questions. The pricing is quite aggressive; for example:
- Office Communications, $15 per user per month
- Hosted Exchange, $10 per user per month
- SharePoint, $7.25 per user per month.
My reaction is that Microsoft wants to snag as much cloud market share as possible and put pricing pressure on anyone who cares to challenge the $65 billion giant. Google will have its paws full. Amazon has already introduced its Windows service. Salesforce.com has pointed out some of the challenges Microsoft faces. We’ll see soon enough.
What I want to see is a hosted Microsoft Fast search system that handles billions of documents.
Stephen Arnold, November 16, 2008
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