A few weeks ago I reported that the Cloud Essentials title was being rolled into the Microsoft Action Pack (MAPS). It was an odd fit coming on the heels of Microsoft announcing a huge gain in cloud-based Office 365 earnings.
This past week, I received some additional insights into that roll-up strategy. Turns out that Microsoft is “cloud,” with its devices and services strategy and, ergo, MAPS is now more “cloudy” so that Cloud Essentials didn’t need to be an outlier. In other words, anything and everything cloud is mainstream at Microsoft. Thus the consolidation.
Photo credit: Microsoft Action Pack
But the real news was the MAPS changes announced this week. Partner’s feedback is mixed. I offered my feedback here, where I fondly recounted the history of Action Pack and, yes, it’s made a difference in building my technology company and driving our successes. However, real world partners are complaining about the pricing increase of roughly 44% at $475 up from $299. My colleague Scott Bekker reported here and reported partners are “not a happy bunch.”
What Bekker found was the 29 out of 30 responses were extremely negative. It makes sense to me. The price went up and some of the benefits changed. The unfavorable response from existing partners would, of course, be expected. If my favorite ski resort increased prices 44% and closed a chairlift, I’d blog my complaint too. Does that make sense?
That said – I’ve renewed my Action Pack subscription because the internal use right (IUR) software benefits are amazing. We're using Windows, Office 365, CRM and more. I’m not giving that up!
