One of the things I still remember from the two years I spent getting my MBA was the “4 P’s” of Successful Products: Product, Packaging, Pricing and Promotion.  I had multiple professors repeat this message and each one emphasized that the products which gain significant adoption in the market all come from organizations that get each of the four P’s right.

Back in October, I wrote about 3 Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) Game Changing announcements from Microsoft (here, here, and here). Those first three announcements were really focused on product functionality and packaging, e.g. the deep technical integration between Intune and Office, the inclusion of Intune MDM capabilities into Office 365, and the announcement of Office for Android tablets. With the release of updates to the Office mobile apps, and the Enterprise Mobility Suite services in November/December (video recap here), I believe that, as of today, Microsoft has delivered the absolute best solution for enabling users to be productive on any device.

The announcement I am going to cover today is all about a packaging and pricing update that dramatically simplifies the acquisition and cost of Office 365 and the Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Over the last 2 months I’ve shared this announcement under NDA with hundreds of our biggest customers, and, without exception, they all give the same response: “Wow! This makes Office 365 and EMS so incredibly affordable – how quickly can you help us get these deployed?”

With the 4 P’s in mind, here’s how partnering with Microsoft for your EMM gets you the absolute best solution at an incredible price.

Cloud Enabling Your Enterprise Agreement

Most medium and large organizations around the world have already signed what is called an Enterprise Agreement (EA) with Microsoft. The EA is made up of three components: Windows Client, Office, and the CAL Suite. CAL stands for “Client Access License” and the Core CAL provides a license for users to access and use Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, SCCM, SCEP, and Windows Server.

The intent of the EA has been to provide a simple way for organizations to acquire the products from Microsoft that they’ll need to enable their users to be productive. The EA has been, by far, the most common method for medium and large organizations to license these products.

With enterprises rapidly using more and more of our new cloud services (Office 365 and EMS are just two examples), customers have been asking for us to deliver a “Cloud EA” that would easily extend the investments they have made in their current EA to then include our new cloud services.

On December 1, 2014 we added this “Cloud EA” to our price list. It is called the Enterprise Cloud Suite (ECS).

The Enterprise Cloud Suite is a super simple way to upgrade your EA to include the new cloud services we’ve delivered, such as:

• Office 365 E3
• The Enterprise Mobility Suite
• A per-user license of Windows.

Yes you read that right – this is the first time we have ever offered a per-user license of Windows!

The numbers are pretty clear: Office 365 and EMS are the fastest growing products in the history of Microsoft and have hit what Geoffrey Moore calls “Escape Velocity” due to the vast numbers of customers already using these cloud services.

For those of you at organizations which already have an EA with the components of Windows, Office, and the CAL Suite – adding ECS will cost from $7 to $12 per user per month.   I am using a range of estimated retail pricing, and range of scenarios – the price you pay will really depend on each situation and what you have already licensed.  If you don’t have these, you can simply purchase the ECS via an Enterprise Cloud User Subscription License (USL). 

It’s simple, easy, and cost effective.

You are likely asking, “What does a per-user license of Windows enable?”  If you were actually asking that (and even if you weren’t) the answer is pretty straightforward; a per-user license of windows allows you to do the following:

• Install Enterprise Edition on any Pro device or 10.1” (or less) Windows tablet.
• Access Windows Enterprise across all the user’s devices with VDI and/or Windows To Go.
• Attach a single license of MDOP that will extend across all the user’s devices at the same price as for a single device.  In the past, MDOP alone has been $7-$9/device/month. This means that you no longer have to worry about counting devices and you get MDOP coverage for all the user’s devices. 

Putting the Enterprise Cloud Suite Price into Perspective

To understand what this can mean for your organization, consider this example:  Let’s say that your price to upgrade to ECS is $7/user/month.  With an ECS user subscription you will be able to bring the value of Windows, VDI, Office 365, and EMS together – that means dramatically simplifying your licensing and reducing your total costs compared to licensing by device

Over the last few months, I’ve been in conversations with organizations who are paying about that same price just to get a per-user license for stand-alone EMM products. In most of these cases, you also have to deploy and maintain the EMM solution on top of your monthly costs.  Doing that makes the total cost of ownership many, many times higher.

If you are already using an EMM solution from someone else, I strongly encourage you to investigate the monthly cost of your current EMM solution.  An upgrade to the Enterprise Cloud Suite may give you significantly more productivity for your money. Just consider what your money could be getting you:  O365+EMS+per-user license of Windows.

It is really easy to make your organization more productive while saving it money!

* * *

Right before the Holidays, I met with a couple of Fortune 100 customers who were already deep into their exploration of Office 365 and EMS. After we had spent some quality time covering our latest innovations and capabilities, we started talking about the Enterprise Client Suite. Both of these organizations were early adopters in the Enterprise Mobility market, and they had both licensed a number of different solutions (followed by the need to then cobble them together). Both organizations said they were incredibly impressed with the integration Microsoft was delivering across identity, productivity, and management – and both also mentioned that they had attempted to do this kind of integration across the products they had already acquired.  Those attempts at integration proved to be too great a challenged however, and those efforts ultimately failed.

There was a tangible “Aha!” moment when we compared their current spending compared to ECS.

Both of these organizations were paying more than 3x more for products from three different companies – compared to what their costs would be by consolidating on ECS. On top of the cost savings, the products within ECS were already fully interoperable – thus eliminating the ongoing operational costs which stretch far beyond the initial 3x cost savings of ECS.

At the time we spoke, these organizations were using various combinations of products from AirWatch, MobileIron, Good Technology, and Box. Their total costs came to over $20/user/month. That is an massive amount of money.  Consider instead the ability to use the following products while saving ~$8-$13/employee/month:

• Office 365 + EMS provides MDM/MAM with Intune
• Enterprise File Sync with OneDrive for Business
• Secure e-mail with Outlook across devices + Intune
• Full Office on all your platforms
• All the benefits of Azure Active Directory that come with EMS
• Plus you get the per-user license of Windows

Pretty amazing.  A better solution, with better integration, at a much better price.

Product. Packaging. Pricing. Promotion.

Microsoft is not just offering the most capable solution for Enterprise Mobility – we’re doing it at a far, far lower price and with a truly integrated solution.

To learn more and get started, click here.