Server Products Subject to Mid-2015 Per-User Price Increase

Under current plans, the price of user-based licenses for most on-premises server products will increase approximately 13% starting Aug. 1, 2015. Listed are the major Client Access Licenses (CALs), Client Management Licenses (CMLs), Subscription Licenses (SLs), and CAL suites affected by the change. Volume licensing customers who buy through Select, Select Plus, Microsoft Products and Services Agreement (MPSA), Open Value Non Organization-Wide, and Open License Open programs will be affected starting Aug. 2015. Enterprise Agreement (EA) and EA Subscription customers (and in some cases Open Value Organization-Wide and Open Value Subscription customers) generally will not feel the impact until after their current contracts expire.

[May 25, 2015 note: The report was edited to indicate an Aug. 1, 2015 price increase. At the time the report was originally published, the plan of record was for the price increase to take effect July 1, 2015. ]

The Aug. 2015 user-based license increase affects almost the exact same set of products as did a similar 15% price increase enacted Dec. 1, 2012. After the Aug. 2015 adjustments, the Per-Device license fee for CALs and SLs—and the Per-OSE (operating system environment) license fee for CMLs—won’t change, but the Per-User license fees will at that point be about 30% more expensive. Since annual Software Assurance (SA) fees are calculated based on the underlying license price at the start of the SA term (25% for server products, including CALs), the cost of SA coverage on user-based CALs and SLs will be affected as well.