Whether you are considering moving from perpetual to subscription based licensing or starting up a new contract – here are some considerations before taking the leap:
Support – Subscription-based licensing for hosted services, such as Office 365, can offer a support reduction. Small and medium sized businesses as well as large companies need to consider whether staffing a large support group and maintaining an ample infrastructure which includes both hardware and software support is truly economically feasible for themselves.
Flexibility – A “con” to subscription based cloud solutions are that they reduce your flexibility in opting for alternative technologies. Once a solution is entrenched in your day to day business operations, it’s quite difficult to switch to a different solution. That’s pretty much true of all hosted solutions, but the cloud really does introduce some additional considerations. These are the kinds of questions that are most prudent for you to ask if you’re considering hosted services.
There are both capital expenses as well as operating expense advantages for both perpetual and subscription based licenses. Operating expenses advantages under perpetual could easily be offset by the monthly per-user charge by which Microsoft’s cloud services are licensed. It’s a matter of deciding whether that number is lower or higher than your current numbers, and knowing what works best in line with your business goals.