Microsoft used to offer cheaper licenses for Exchange for small companies. They have discontinued those cheaper offers for current software versions which means for many smaller companies, buying a Windows Server license and Exchange got prohibitively expensive and after end of life of those old versions the only feasible option forward was to switch to the cloud version of Exchange (and thus a subscription).
I still don’t get it, how did Microsoft force them to switch? Offering something is not forcing?
Microsoft used to offer cheaper licenses for Exchange for small companies. They have discontinued those cheaper offers for current software versions which means for many smaller companies, buying a Windows Server license and Exchange got prohibitively expensive and after end of life of those old versions the only feasible option forward was to switch to the cloud version of Exchange (and thus a subscription).