I am normally as very strong supporter of MS and its products but when I received this in my Inbox this morning I could not believe the size of the increase. I could understand a CPI increase or even a little above it but 26%! I am only a small user of the system at the moment but this will make me think twice about using Azure for future projects.

Surely, you cannot be attributing this ridiculous price change to the reduction of the value of the Australian dollar against the US dollar at the moment? Frankly Microsoft, this is insulting to your Australian customers and will no doubt drive prospective and existing customers to other providers.

I was lucky enough to receive an email this morning regarding an increase in the Australia Azure pricing from 1st August 2015. 

Very disappointed that there will be a 26% increase....26% is a big number. 

Hosting Azure stuff in the Australia data centers is now uneconomical when compared to Singapore or the US, etc.   You also need to factor in GST.

Not sure if this has something to do with the recent government crack down on tax evasion with big companies channeling profits overseas.

Not good news for Australia as regards to Azure is concerned and I'm sure a lot of other people will be shocked with a 26% increase.

Ron

I agree, 26% is an incredible jump in such a short time-frame, combined with the costs of achieving Express Route services in Australia to Azure, suddenly Azure is not looking too hot vs what we can get from other providers.

"Effective August 1, 2015, local prices for Azure and Azure Marketplace in Australian dollars will increase by 26% percent to more closely align with prices in most markets."

What markets? The Australian market is already one if not the most expensive market? Sounds like a made up reason to me. As Ron points out, GST on top of that additional 26%. The numbers are not great.

Regards

Geez....cant believe Microsoft would push an increase like this...must be mad. 

Agree, Australia is currently the most expensive.  I would rather move the virtuals to Singapore or US.

I'm sure other IT managers  will be crunching the numbers this morning given its a new financial year.

EA customers and older 6-12 months prepaid have a little more time before this increase catches up.  

 

Bitterly disappointed by the cost increase. I can understand 3-5% but 26% is crazy. I assumed its the AUD $ being weaker in the global market as no doubt they will be funnelling that money offshore and now getting less return for it but ultimately AUD $1 = $1 so if it was staying on Australian shores then the price should remain the same.. it is more expensive than other markets at the moment as well.. 

Yeah 3-5% increase would be easier to swallow.

AUD/USD has taken a hammering since 2014 where it was around 0.90 now its 0.77.

However its the same story for the EUR/USD, do we expect the same increase in the Europe data centers? 

There is an argument that all data centers should be pegged against the USD otherwise companies in US would move some virtuals to Australia as they gained more compute power for the same cost.

On-premise/locally hosted providers in Australia would gain in this business model.  

However there is more to this increase than currency rates, 0.90 - 0.77 is only a 13% drop.

 

Hi,

In Europe it's a 13% increase "only".

Unfortunally, all "US" services increase their prices since two or three months in Europe.

Regards,

I too was pretty surprised when I saw it. Thankfully I don't have anything in the Australian SE region as latency isn't so important for my app.

Gee, Amazon must be jumping for joy!

Not sure why     Sadiqh Ahmedmerged this thread, I started it as a discussion before anyone else??

We got 17% in Sweden.

Hi,

If so, I would suggest you contact Billing support, it's free, and it's the best choice for you.
Please contact support team by creating a support ticket at:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/contact/

They will be able to help you with this request.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Azam Khan