Mike AustinFounder & CEO, Metrixdata 360 Inc. · Mike Austin | Helping enterprises take control of software costs through data, strategy, and relentless execution

Declining Priority of E5 Licenses and Strategic Shifts

Name: Declining Priority of E5 Licenses and Strategic Shifts
Uploaded: 2025-10-21T01:00:48+00:00
Duration: 1 min 2 s
Channel: Mike Austin
Description: Microsoft is flattening its licensing price bands, replacing the old A-to-D structure with uniform pricing. Large enterprises face 10-15% cost increases…

21 Oct 2025 · 1 min

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Microsoft is flattening its licensing price bands, replacing the old A-to-D structure with uniform pricing. Large enterprises face 10-15% cost increases, while smaller organizations get hit with less obvious price hikes. The flat model cuts customer negotiating power and boosts Microsoft's margins.

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So if we let's, let's dive into this ending the end of the price levels and why this is really a structural, structural shift here in what we're seeing with mine. So like I said, they're eliminating these A to D bands, which means that large enterprises could lose 10 to 15, maybe even more. Smaller orgs will face silent uplifts. I'm going to show you what I mean by that. And basically what this means to Microsoft is that a flat pricing structure means more margin for Microsoft and less leverage for you, right? If you like. If you think about that, if Microsoft has a discount strategy that says that we're only going to discount to X percent, I don't know what that is. But if we're only going to discount to X percent regardless of the size of the customer, by increasing the overall price structure, everybody is facing increases, right? That puts more money to Microsoft's bottom line.