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Microsoft is Killing Outlook.com Premium (thurrott.com)
Paul Thurrott, writing for Thurrott.com: A support document describing new premium Outlook.com features for Office 365 subscribers hides the real story today: Microsoft just killed Outlook.com Premium. I wrote earlier about how Microsoft was bringing some Outlook.com Premium features, like an ad-free inbox, to Office 365 Home and Personal subscribers. That's great news, of course. But a related support document buries the lede. "The Outlook.com Premium standalone offering is now closed to new subscribers," the support document notes. "Current subscribers can renew their subscriptions to continue receiving subscription benefits." Yikes. There's also a link to another support document that continues this conversation. But there really isn't much more to say. If you're already using Outlook.com Premium, you can continue to do so. And for now, at least, you can even renew the subscription and keep using its unique features, like custom domain support.
One of the nice things Outlook Premium lets you do was host email at a vanity domain, but with Hotmail/Outlook.com levels of reliability and therefore a lower cost. Doing the same thing with Exchange Online is much more money, and works well for those who don't want Office 365. (I have free or cheap access to Office 365 from at least 3 different programs that I can think of.)
I guess it's another example of Microsoft figuring out the maximum level of revenue extraction they can get and balancing that with offering "gateway services" that get people hooked. Office 365 was/is the hook for companies to move to Azure. The company I work for went through the transition to 365 last year, and it's pretty obvious what the plan is when you look at it from a distance. First, establishing Office 365 makes your company establish an Azure Active Directory. Next step is to get rid of OWA and allow your users Exchange access, thereby getting you to federate your classic Active Directory. Once you're there, it's a short leap to letting developers build Azure stuff. And once the Shadow IT people are reined in, they make it incredbly easy to move workloads to Azure. It's all about getting people to stop buying software and start paying their Microsoft bill monthly.