Business basic goes from $6 to $7. Business premium is unchanged from $22 to $22.

Price increases are normal. (I’ve been on HN long enough to remember when “raise your prices” was treated as the best startup advice around in HN comments) These price increases aren’t excessive relative to inflation for other services in a business context. I don’t see this as a dangerous game.

> The new "features" they're justifying this with (Copilot) isn't even something that most people want

Most people who comment on HN, maybe. Their average customer is probably demanding it and at risk of switching products if the AI integration is not as good as a competitor’s.

The Venn diagram of their customer base and Hacker News commenters doesn’t have much overlap.

> This feels like a dangerous game they're playing. Yes, there is some lock in, but competitors exist and are better than ever.

Except there are not really any competitors if you look at the whole package.

A Microsoft 365 Business Standard subscription, for example, gets you bundled Teams and Exchange.

The fact you get the big-four (Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint) thrown in is really just icing on the cake.

The great unwashed masses will still continue to pay it. It's not a sizeable increases that they'd be willing to move elsewhere. People rationalize it in the context of it's only a buck a month and other things increase by more. M$ are not stupid but do know what they're doing. May take is. Don't do drugs. Don't do subscriptions. Don't do MICROS~1.

>How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

In my experience, most people, especially execs who are negotiating the licensing deals, want Copilot. Even if they are underwhelmed after using it, at that point, MS doesn't care. They already have your money.

I wish I could agree with this, but the ecosystem lock-in is too great. They might lose business for sure but it may not put a dent in their revenue at all.

If you replace office, you'll have to replace sharepoint, onedrive, etc.. and it isn't just the tools but the policies and critical features that go along with those. For most orgs, this is literally their lifeblood, not just some tool they can yank out. For smaller orgs it might be easier, but those don't pay Microsoft as much anyways.

From a user point of view, there are tools that have similar features, some even better features. G-suite is the only platform i know of that unifies all the office productivity products like 365 does. But neither G-suite nor any other platform can be managed/policed as well as 365. At the end of the day, will Google behave any better than Microsoft anyways (cost or otherwise)? And it isn't just policing and management but securing all that precious data in there, Microsoft might not be great but lots of tech-debt has gone into securing it within that platform. A migration would be costly, justifying it with cost savings alone might be difficult.

Most of their enterprise clients get bundled services so it often still retains its competitive edge. Their Power suite, Teams and the existing integrations make it cost effective even with the increases.

Other than Google, what are other competitors that worth evaluating?

Can I just get the version without CoPilot for cheaper? Or at all?

Likely they'd charge more for it.

Google was increasing their pricing too. Also before last year they were charging an extra license for Gemini but then decided to throw it in.