All the signs are there: Microsoft wants you to move your Hosted Desktop customers to Azure and it is starting to make business sense.
The first sign were the two consecutive price increases in RDS under SPLA. Compounded, these increases amount to over 25% increase in a period of just 2 years.
The next sign are the stringent requirements around being in the Qualified Multi-Tenant Hosting (QMTH) program. This program authorizes qualified third-party hosting service providers to host customers’ Windows virtual machines via Microsoft Cloud Agreement subscription or Microsoft Volume Licensing on multitenant hardware.
In October, 2020, Microsoft announced that to qualify for QMTH, the partner needed to deliver a minimum of $300,000 in CSP revenue in a year.
The next sign hasn’t happened yet, but we believe it’s coming. The next SPLA price increase will focus on the Office suite. The margins on desktop hosting will get very slim and competing with the performance Microsoft can deliver might eat into those margins further.
Microsoft has already done this with Exchange. About 10 years ago there was a big push on Service Providers to migrate their Exchange seats to Office 365. Hosters could not meet the aggressive price points or differentiate their offering. They could either sign up for CSP, take advantage of the incentives and proactively move their hosted seats to Office 365 or risk having them cannibalized by other CSP providers or Microsoft direct sellers.
Microsoft was very successful in that initiative. We have no reason to believe they will not see the same success with Windows Desktop.
The barrier to entry into this new offering is a concern over both profitability and the expertise required to migrate and manage workloads in Azure.
We’ve partnered with a company we believe can remove both of these barriers and help you transform your hosted desktop business.
MyCloudIT.com delivers a solution that completely simplifies the deployment and management of virtual desktops in Azure. Moreover, their solution right-sizes the VMs to ensure you pay a little as possible.
You won’t need to retrain your system admin and get multiple Azure certifications to make this leap. MyCloudIT is providing free 1:1 consultation for any Service Provider looking to explore their hosted desktop options in Azure.
If you want to book some time with us to discuss how to transform your hosting business, click the link below to book a no obligation consultation. Or just email us at info@altariscloud.com.
Your Microsoft Licensing Experts at Altaris Cloud