Goodbye On-Premise: Microsoft to Shift Office Servers to the Cloud

Microsoft has introduced new subscription plans for the upcoming 2021 releases of legacy office server software, that includes Exchange Server, Skype for Business Server, and SharePoint Server. The question is — would customers want to upgrade to the cloud and pay a monthly subscription for depreciated products that don’t have a new feature roadmap yet. 

Microsoft announced plans to release a new version of Skype for Business Server in the second half of 2021. The Redmond tech giant, which sells communications server software — Skype for Business under an on-premise licensing model plans to shift to a subscription-based model. 

At the recently concluded Microsoft Ignite 2020, Microsoft’s Greg Taylor, Director of Marketing for Exchange,  revealed that the next version of Skype for Business Server is temporarily dubbed vNext. The details of the actual release name, pricing and availability will be shared later. Going forward, Skype for Business Server can be installed directly with Lync Server 2013 and Skype for Business Server 2015.

Microsoft also announced new versions of other server products like Exchange Server, SharePoint Server. Taylor said, “The next versions of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Skype for Business Server will be available in the second half of 2021, and only be available with the purchase of a subscription license.”

With Exchange Server vNext, Microsoft is phasing out the on-premise delivery model, making Exchange Server 2019 the last on-premise product version. “We highly recommended that customers with existing Exchange Server 2013 or 2016 deployments and who expect to keep on-premises servers in the future should start planning and installing Exchange Server 2019 today. Once the next version of Exchange is released, they will then be able to perform an in-place upgrade to that version, making the move to 2019 the last major upgrade they will ever need to do,” Microsoft explained in a blog post. 

As part of the subscription model, customers will receive support, product updates, and security and time zone patches. In-place upgrades will be available for two years, this means customers who are running Exchange Server 2019 will be able to upgrade to the new subscription-based codebase without the need to include additional servers or move mailboxes.

See Also: Will Covid-19 Spell the Death of On-Premise Software?

The announcements are a part of the broader shift to a subscription model for most of its products and services. Despite this, the company is going forward with the release of a flat-priced, on-premise version of the workplace productivity software, Microsoft Office in 2021. Microsoft calls it a ‘perpetual release’, which links the software to a particular device and not to a user. 

Microsoft’s announcement, however, failed to mention any significant feature updates to Skype for Business Server, Exchange Server or SharePoint Server. Tony RedmondOpens a new window , Author of Office365 for IT Pros and Columnist at Petri.com believes this is due to the company’s primary focus on maintaining sustainability as the product undergoes a transition. “Those anticipating that the release of a new version of Exchange will bring new functionality to on-premises users are likely to be disappointed,” Redmond saidOpens a new window .

He adds, “The marching orders for the developers to focus on Exchange Online remain, meaning that the only new features likely to appear in Exchange 2022 are those developed for Exchange Online which have no dependency on another Microsoft 365 component. Microsoft is not yet able to confirm what the new version will include. My expectation is the focus will be on long-term sustainability instead of glitzy new features.”

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