With UK Businesses becoming increasingly dependent on technology, the search for partners that can deliver reliable, fair, and customer-centric services becomes increasingly important.
Whether you’re an online retail business or a fintech firm, your business needs transparent and reliable technology providers that provide mission-critical systems.
However, from escalating cloud costs to confusing licensing terms, recent Microsoft cloud issues are putting UK enterprises in a difficult situation. This brings us to the elephant in the room – Is Microsoft prioritising customer success, or just its bottom line?
This blog takes an in-depth look at Microsoft’s recent cloud and licensing moves and why your forward-thinking organisation must re-evaluate your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement renewal.
New Microsoft Cloud Strategy – Revenue First, Customer Second?
Microsoft’s recent decisions, including its direct takeover of Enterprise Agreement (EA) renewals, raises questions about whether it has its customers’ best interests at heart.
Among other changes, Microsoft has begun reining in control over managing renewals and customer support that once was the stronghold of its partners and resellers.
What is the new Microsoft cloud strategy all about?
- Direct renewals and support from Microsoft mean resellers and partners are left out of the loop, leaving fewer advocates and less dependable support.
- Microsoft partners receive lower incentives, negatively impacting the long-standing business relationships and service continuity.
- As a business, you’re forced to reach out to Microsoft directly for support, engagement, or Microsoft enterprise agreement renewal, which can be inconvenient and inflexible for your business.
This shift is less about improved service and more about securing profit, even if it means disrupting the market and cutting out the very partners that helped build Microsoft’s dominance.
Microsoft’s Lock-In Tactics – Are You Stepping into A Strategic Trap?
Lock-in tactics refer to the strategies that firms use to make it difficult or expensive for customers to migrate to other providers. More recently, Microsoft has been building ecosystems that are increasingly inflexible customer-unfriendly.
Here’s what these lock-in tactics mean:
Azure-only Features
This means you gain the complete functionality of Microsoft tools or services only when you run on Azure and not on other public or private platforms. This limits your business to using only Azure, even when other cloud platforms may offer better value or features.
Unfair Licensing Models
Microsoft’s licensing terms “punish” you for using their mainstream competitor cloud vendors. For example, if you want to run a Windows Server or SQL Server on a non-Azure platform, you may have to pay more for a license or have limited rights.
Migration Barriers
Early termination fees, no portability between licensing models, and integration with other Microsoft services, like Office 365 and Dynamics Business Central, make it expensive to migrate workloads to another provider.
From Azure-only features to licensing models that penalise customers for using other cloud providers, the strategy is becoming clearer. Entering into a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement for the Azure cloud may mean being bound and dependent in all aspects, whether technical, financial, or contractual, without any wiggle room.
This cloud strategy by Microsoft may boost its bottom line, but it leaves you with:
- Price rises with little room to negotiate
- More reliance on Microsoft products
- Facing fewer choices
- High switching costs
Is Microsoft Listening?
For many customers and partners, the answer feels like a resounding no.
Complaints about licensing complexity, poor support, and low partner collaboration continue to mount. This means if your goals are not in sync with Microsoft’s revenue strategy, you may find yourself sidelined.
But as expected, there’s pushback from businesses. The CISPE has intervened and flagged concerns with Microsoft’s consolidation of EA controls that are already affecting resellers’ business models.
What Can Businesses Do?
If your business’s objectives don’t match with Microsoft’s new cloud strategies, here’s what you can do:
- Diversify your stack: Avoid becoming dependent on a single vendor to skip the lock-in issue
- Negotiate hard: Know the market value of competing services and be open to renegotiation
- Explore alternatives: Cloud, productivity tools, and licensing flexibility exist outside the Microsoft ecosystem
Switch to BlackBox Hosting to Protect Your Business from Multiple Microsoft Cloud Issues
Microsoft may dominate the enterprise IT landscape, but its recent actions suggest that its cloud strategy is inclined towards maximising profit instead of maximising customer success.
It’s about time your business takes a hard look at how much control you’re giving up and its true cost.
If you’re ready for a better alternative with more flexibility and control, or evaluating your options beyond the Microsoft network, think independent cloud providers like BlackBox Hosting.
Unlike Microsoft’s cloud strategy, our strategy is truly customer-centric. This is why our customers stay with us, as evident in our 100% customer retention rate.
When you partner with us, you can expect:
- Secure, flexible, private server hosting that’s 76% faster and 50% cheaper than public clouds
- Flexible and transparent billing options with no penalties for scale and consumption. You know exactly what you’re paying for; no hidden or surprise charges
- Round-the-clock UK-based support committed to fixing within the hour
- GDPR-compliant, ISO 27001-certified, Tier 3+ server facility
- Comprehensive Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- 99.999% network uptime guarantee
Ready to make the switch? Call +44(0)203 740 7840 to get in touch with us today.
