Eurozone death spiral forces Microsoft to ease UK licensing price hike

Microsoft has confirmed that the pending price hike on volume licensing will not be as steep as the initial preview indicated due to the weakening of the Euro currency in recent weeks. At the start of last month, Redmond said it expected UK biz customers would pay between 7.5 per cent and 33.5 per cent more for software …

[Anonymous Coward]

Price gouging.

[ukgnome]

Are they Tories?

as they are currently great at U-Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

Still a massive rip-off. Do they not know there's a recession on?

[asdf]

they don't care

When you are a convicted monopolist that owns all the major political parties recessions only serve to weed out your competitors.

[asdf]

Re: they don't care

That is your would be competitors that you keep on life support to support you argument about a robust market environment. Guess they will have to buy a new batch soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not price in Dollars ?

Then use current exchange rates ?

Doh, stupid me that would mean everyone in Europe would be paying US prices instead of getting ripped off.

[HobbleAlong]

Delay purchase

If you're wise, you will delay your purchase and the price will stay the same or decrease. M$ will keep prices rising as long as they can get away with it, but will lower prices if no one is willing to bend over for the shaft...

[Anonymous Coward]

"A Microsoft mouthpiece"

Nicely put

[Anonymous Coward]

Same ol' same ol'

Combined with Windows 8 that should be enough to make even the lowest order plebeian run in another direction.

[Charles Smith]

Never thought I'd say this

Thank God for LINUX. Just imagine how bad Micro$oft's greed would be if there was no strong competitor. It is bad enough now.

[Andus McCoatover]

Anyone wanna bet...

...they'll extend XP life YET AGAIN???

Effing fantastic, Microsoft! Most companies have already completed their IT budgets, now get hit by this whammy.

PHB to the Board of Directors, cap-in-hand

"Please, Sir, can we have some more?"

"Why?"

"Because that nasty Microsoft wolf wants another 25%"

"Nope. Just buy 25% less licences....for 25% fewer staff!"

[AlGodet]

Death spiral ????

Where have you seen a death spiral ???? The euro is still 30% higher than its lowest rate, and does not significantly lose anything… You'll need better glasses, or stop listening to some propagandists…

[Dan 55]

Re: Death spiral ????

No, we've only got elections in Greece where in all probability they'll reject the bailout, Spanish banks teetering on a precipice, and Spain on the point of being officially rescued. The euro's never looked in better shape...

[N2]

Dyslexia

I read

Microsoft death spiral forces Eurozone to ease UK licensing price hike

[present_arms]

Re: Dyslexia

no just wishful thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Metroll

Sorry, but I can't help but find the notion of people –not only using Microsoft software, but actually paying for the privilege– hysterically funny!

[Christine Hedley]

Re: Metroll

Convince the games developers to use OpenGL instead of DirectX and I and plenty of others like me will happily migrate away from Windows, but until that happens...

[David Gale]

Terminal Decline

...and for what?

So that some tactically focused muppet can keep their numbers on track whilst the rest of MS lose their jobs?

Utter madness! They deserve what's coming to them and so too do the shareholders for being spineless, vaccuous morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again...

The UK has the last laugh for /not/ taking part in this horror comedy called "the Euro".

(written by a 'jealous' Dutchie ;-))

[Dire Criti¢]

What the hell are they on about?

The price of the software is set at a level that the market will stand, not what it actually costs them with a bit of reasonable profit. Like there's an actual, real life 100 quid difference between home office 2010 and the business edition.

The prices are set at a level where they can gouge out of us as much as is possible. The retail price and the 'manufacturing' price bear absolutely no relationship to each other.

[Ted Treen]

Someone has to...

...keep Balmer in office furniture...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps MS should read Leo Apotheker's CV.....

From the El Reg article http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/06/01/apotheker_steria/

"At SAP he caused a storm during his 10-month tenure as CEO by leading the firm to its first quarterly loss in seven years, and faced a customer backlash after attempting to raise prices during a recession."

Hmmm....raising prices during a recession....not such a good idea then, maybe.

[Polhotpot]

wow

People still use Microsoft software?

[Dave Edge]

We're still being screwed by M$!

The Company I work for is still going to be screwed by Micro$oft come the price hike.

Previously we've always qualified for Academic pricing because we're a registered charity and are classed as a "Social Enterprise" according to Microsoft.

MS are now changing the criteria for this and because we don't receive >10% in donations and we don't receive >50% from public sector contracts we're being moved to a Commercial License model, despite the fact that we're a non-profit organisation AND a registered charity.

This amounts to around a 500% increase in our licensing costs still!

Oh well, this will only serve to accelerate the uptake of Linux within our Company, so there is a good side to this already...