Microsoft Licensing

Prices for Some Server-Side Licenses Changing (Sidebar)

Server-side licenses for SharePoint Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, and Project Server 2013 cost more than the 2010 versions of these products. Server-side licenses typically comprise but a small percentage of the overall licensing fee for on-premises deployment of most server-based products, with SQL Server licensed per-core being the most notable exception. Consequently, the impact of server-side license prices on customers' budgets is typically modest. However, another recent change magnifies the implications somewhat.

Prices Up for SharePoint, Lync, Project

The pricing changes are as follows.

SharePoint Server 2013. A server license for SharePoint Server 2013 is approximately 40% more expensive than a server license for SharePoint Server 2010 (previously US$4,926 in Open License). However, simplifications made to server-side licensing for SharePoint Server 2013 may mitigate the price increase in some scenarios. In particular, several expensive licenses—FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (US$21,975), SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites Standard (US$11,793), and SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites Enterprise (US$41,392)—were eliminated, with the SharePoint Server 2013 server license taking their place.

Lync Server 2013. The cost of licensing a Lync Server 2013 server infrastructure goes up significantly. There will be just one edition of the server-side license for Lync Server 2013, and it will be priced about 10% less than the former Lync Server 2010 Enterprise license (US$4,051), which was over five times as much as the Lync Server 2010 Standard license (US$708).

Project Server 2013. The price of a server license for Project Server 2013 is approximately 15% more expensive than a server license for Project Server 2010 (US$4,926).

Note that there are no changes to the pricing of server-side licenses for Exchange Server 2013, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012.

More SA Needed, Higher SA Prices

Along with the server-side license price increases, Microsoft is rolling out changes to licensing rules for virtualized systems that will magnify the effects of the increases on cost.

In particular, customers will now likely need to buy Software Assurance (SA) to license virtualized server workloads running the latest versions of SharePoint Server, Lync Server, and Project Server (and Exchange Server as well), because of changes to rules for reassigning licenses among servers. Annual SA fees are based on the underlying (increased) license price, and so these will be going up as well. (See "Virtualized Servers More Likely to Need SA" on page 17 of the Nov. 2012 Update.)