Sports car, per minute pricing in Azure revamp

11 years ago

Are you miffed that Microsoft Corp. charges you even for stopped Azure virtual machines?

Microsoft today announced that it is getting rid of the practice with a revamp of the Azure Web services hourly pricing structure to one that charges customers by the minute. Redmond is also sweeting the deal by offering up an 2013 Aston Martin V8 Vantage coupe in a raffle for subscribers who register for the new rates and deploy one Web site of virtual machine (VM) by Oct. 1.

It used to be that Azure customers had to delete a virtual machine that was not in use in order to prevent being charged for it.

Microsoft is offering the non-VM version of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage in a raffle for Azure users

However, at the TechEd North America 2013 conference today, Microsoft announced that Azure no longer charges for stopped. VMs. Before Microsoft used an hourly billing method, customers that that use Azure service for an hour and a half were billed for two hours. The move to per minute billing means that in such a scenario the customer will be charged for 90 minutes.

Azure also offers server licenses at no charge to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) members. The members will also get special rates of up to 97 per cent discount for running servers within Azure.

Oh, and about the Aston Martin, click here for details

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