News

End of Microsoft Open Licensing approaching

In September 2020, Microsoft announced that it will end its 20-year-old Open License program for commercial customers. This change is part of the ongoing migration of traditional licensing into a more flexible and cloud friendly model. Licensing renewals and online services will continue to operate until 31 December 2021 and your Open perpetual licenses will still always be valid, but from 1 January 2022, all new licenses will need to be purchased via the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

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The good news is that we have been using this model for a number of years for things such as Office 365 and we believe it is a fairer model for you all.  You can still purchase the traditional perpetual licenses through this model as well as subscription licenses, with most of the subscription licensing licensed on a consumption basis, meaning you only pay for what you use.

It is important to note that Microsoft will be introducing changes to the CSP licensing model in March 2022 including incentivising multi-year commitments, but they are ironing out the details at the moment.

There’s no need to worry however, we will contact you at renewal to discuss your options and we will help you transition seamlessly.

Finally, there will be a price increase in Microsoft 365 licensing coming in March 2022, we will release further information on this in a future mailer where we can present all the facts.

In the meantime if you have any questions please contact your Account Manager, or if you are not a customer of Connect Systems please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help you.

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