Microsoft has announced details of its new Windows 10 subscriptions for enterprise customers, which will be introduced later this year.
From this fall, the company will begin offering Windows 10 Enterprise E3 through its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) network on a subscription basis, priced at $7 per user per month.
There are significant advantages to this - for Microsoft, for its CSP partners, and for their customers. As Microsoft explained today, "CSP partners will be able to provide a subscription to Windows 10 Enterprise Edition as part of a managed service offering, which is ideal for businesses who do not have dedicated IT resources or limited IT staff, and want their licensing and IT needs managed by a trusted and experienced partner."
This allows CSP partners to manage their customers" IT needs more efficiently across the organization, from OS to software and services - both on-premises and in the cloud. That in itself brings obvious benefits to the customer, along with the added advantage of more predictable and transparent IT spending for the organization.
The monthly subscription model also offers built-in flexibility, by ensuring that companies of all sizes can adapt their IT usage and spending as needed, rather than being saddled with longer-term commitments that might result in unnecessary overspend. It will also help to reduce the intimidating up-front costs that might otherwise put companies off expanding their IT infrastructure, or upgrading to a new OS version.
With Microsoft now making it easier for its partners to do more of the hard work of selling Windows 10 to their customers, it creates something of a "win-win" situation for the company.
It enables Microsoft to support its partner network by integrating them directly into its Windows as a Service delivery channel - thus creating new revenue opportunities for those partners - while it reaps the benefits of more organizations migrating to its new OS on a subscription basis.