Exchange 2010 Packaging, Pricing, and Licensing

Licensing of Exchange Server 2010 for on-premises use remains generally consistent with its predecessor, Exchange Server 2007. The feature sets of the product’s two editions, Standard and Enterprise, are less distinct than in previous versions, and their usage rules, licensing models, and prices for most licenses remain identical. While architectural improvements may allow organizations to implement an Exchange Server 2010 infrastructure using fewer servers, several new factors may increase overall licensing costs: upgrading to Exchange 2010 requires a potentially expensive upgrade of Windows Server (and possibly Outlook 2010), and the per-client cost of premium features has gone up.

Two Server Editions

Like its predecessors, Exchange Server 2010 is offered in both a Standard Edition (SE) and an Enterprise Edition (EE), with SE suitable for all Exchange roles (e.g., mailbox server, edge transport server, unified messaging server) and EE offering advanced capabilities exclusively for servers running the mailbox role—only servers operating in the mailbox role would ever need EE. Server license prices remain unchanged from Exchange 2007, starting at US$700 for SE and US$4,000 for EE (on the Open License price list, with further discounts available through volume licensing). For server licenses, annual Software Assurance (SA) fees, which provide rights to future updates and some other benefits, continue at 25% of the underlying license price.