Microsoft Purview is a suite of products focused on data security, governance, and compliance across the Microsoft portfolio.
Microsoft first introduced Pay As You Go (PAYG) aka Consumption SKUs for Purview in January 2025 and now, from May 1, 2025 there are a new set. These new SKUs are aimed at protecting “your data as it moves across networks and through GenAI applications“.
The * is to note that Audit Standard is included within “Microsoft first party applications such as Microsoft 365 applications, Fabric, and Microsoft first party AI apps like Microsoft 365 Copilot, Security Copilot or AI applications custom-built using Copilot Studio“.
New metric/acronym alert! The 10,000 events for Insider Risk Management are known as a “Data Security Processing Unit (DPSU)”.
I notice that, for “Data Security Investigations”, Microsoft say:
“Data Security Investigations is billed through two meters: 1) the Data Security Investigations non-AI processing and storage meter and 2) Security Compute Units.
The Data Security Investigations non-AI processing and storage meter allows customers to store data related to an investigation. Security Compute Units are used to measure the computational capacity needed to run the AI analysis within DSI.”
Security Compute Units (SCUs) were introduced with Microsoft Security Copilot. It seems now that certain Purview PAYG usage may also consume your SCUs – needing further planning and budget insights.
Removed “without Microsoft’s prior written approval” from the clause preventing using MS service to mine crypto…I guess they realised they were never going to give anyone permission for this!
Changed the Use Rights for Azure Local software from:
“Customer may use the Azure Local software only (i) on servers dedicated to Customer’s internal use“
to
“Customer may use the Azure Local software only (i) on devices dedicated to Customer’s internal use“
Microsoft say this represents a move to “include smaller, more affordable devices than traditional servers“
They also removed the following clause “Any customer support for Azure Local that may be available from Microsoft requires that Azure Local runs on server hardware that is pre-validated and listed in the Azure Local catalog or any successor.”
Added Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat to the list of EU Data Boundary Services
March 5th
You can now add the Microsoft 365 E5 Security add-on to the Business Premium SKU.
March 12th
Added a section on Data Handling of Query Data with M365 Copilot & M365 Copilot Chat:
Microsoft has no rights in Query Data other than as needed to provide the services,
Query Data is not used to improve Bing,
Query Data is not used to create advertising profiles or track user behavior,
Query Data is not shared with advertisers or otherwise beyond Microsoft and its contracted suppliers who are subject to terms no less protective than these provisions,
Query Data is not used to train generative AI foundation models, and
Query Data is treated as Customer confidential information and protected by appropriate technical and organizational measures.
Clarification that certain concurrent use rights for Defender on up to 5 devices does not include Server OSEs:
Eligible Licensed Users may use Microsoft Defender for Business on up to five concurrent devices. Customer may not use a Microsoft Defender for Business User SL with server OSEs.
Eligible Licensed Users may use Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management or Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management Add-on on up to five concurrent devices. Customer may not use Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management or Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management Add-On User SLs with server OSEs.
It’s the Microsoft Product Terms for February 2025:
Added Azure Managed Applications, Azure Resource Manager, and Cloud PC to the EU Data Boundary Services…which now also includes storage of Professional Services Data.
Added Microsoft Defender for Business customers can apply Defender for Business to five devices.
Removed Microsoft 365 Information Protection and DLP – Student Use Benefit Add-on from Availability and Prerequisite Tables.
Microsoft have announced changes to the Enterprise Agreement but, not unusually, it’s still all a bit unclear.
“Beginning January 1, 2025, a small percentage of cloud Enterprise Agreements (EA) in direct markets will no longer be eligible for renewal under the existing EA framework”
What exactly is a “cloud EA”? Is it where there is only Azure? Only Azure and M365?
Why not all cloud EAs?
How is that defined?
What will be the alternative?
“For enterprise customers, the Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E, the digital evolution of the traditional EA), will provide the optimal, streamlined solution.”
This is direct from Microsoft but is, in many ways, a “bigger” version of CSP rather than a slightly different EA.
So, “evolution” is an interesting choice. That implies a continuation whereas I’d probably us the word “replacement”…
Microsoft will begin notifying impacted customers in Jan 2025 that they cannot renew into the EA.
The post also says:
“Partners will continue to earn incentives when transacting EA renewals”
So they’re not all disappearing…at least not yet!
This marks yet another shift and yet another step towards more licensing business going direct to Microsoft.
To balance this out, they have also announced thst Copilot for M365/Sales/Service will be available on a monthly billing basis from December 1st…but will be 5% more expensive.
As well, all current monthly SKUs will have a 5% price increase from April 2025 and Power BI is increasing. I’ll do a separate post on that shortly.
It is interesting that the final section of the Microsoft post is titled “Microsoft is a partner-led company”…
If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch 😊
We’ve got some new M365 licenses added to EA, EAS, and MCA (CSP) – first up, a bunch more Frontline Worker SKUS:
10-Year Audit Log Retention
Defender Vulnerability Management
Entra Internet Access
Entra Private Access
Secure Access Essentials Frontline Worker
Also “Python in Excel” is now available as an add-on license for:
M365 Apps for Business/Enterprise M365 Business Standard/Premium O365 E3/E5
One would assume it can also be added to M365 E3/E5, as that includes Apps for Enterprise…but then why are Business Std/Prem listed separately?
It’s to be noted that “Python in Excel” has been in public preview since August 2023 with the features freely available for Excel within Microsoft 365 subscriptions. However, the intention has always been to move some of the features behind a paid license:
“While in Preview, Python in Excel will be included with your Microsoft 365 subscription. After the Preview, some functionality will be restricted without a paid license. More details will be available before General Availability.”
It’s the Microsoft Product Terms for August 2024 – the first of the new FY so not much going on but let’s take a look.
O365/M365 A1 added as a base license for Copilot for M365
The base licenses for Copilot for Sales & Services have been expanded, although not to the extent of Copilot for M365. You can now add these to: Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium/F1/F3/E3/A1/A3/E5/A5 Office 365 F3/E1/E3/A1/A3/E5/A5
Intune Frontline Worker SKUs added to MCA
Changes to (seemingly) tighten the wording around using Open AI content for training purposes.
It’s that time of year again – Microsoft have announced their Q4 and full financial year results…so let’s take a look.
Full Year FY24 Results
Revenue = $245.1 billion, a 16% increase
Net Income = $88.1 billion, a 22% increase
Microsoft Cloud = $135 billion +, a 23% increase.
Q4 FY 24 Results
Q4 Revenue = $64.7 billion, a 15% increase
Q4 Net Income = $22 billion, a 10% increase
Microsoft Cloud
This isn’t a Business Unit but rather a group of related products across the organisation including:
Azure
O365 Commercial
Dynamics 365
Parts of LinkedIn
“Other cloud properties”
Revenue was $36.8 billion, an increase of 21% Year on Year (YoY).
Microsoft note that gross margin decreased YoY to 69%. This is driven by “sales mix shift to Azure” but was partially offset by Microsoft making Azure improvements including scaling their AI Infrastructure.
Now let’s look at some of the individual Business Units and how they performed in Q4 FY24.
Productivity and Business Processes
Revenue = $20.3 billion, an 11% increase
Office 365 Commercial = 13% increase. Seat growth was again driven by SMB and Frontline Worker growth while Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) growth was driven by E5 and Copilot for M365.
LinkedIn = 10% increase
Dynamics 365 = 19% increase <– This is now almost 90% of all Dynamics revenue.
This gives a good overview of growth over the last 5 quarters:
Intelligent Cloud
Revenue = $28.5 billion, a 19% increase
Azure (and other cloud services) growth was 29% for this quarter, a little drop from the percentage point increase of the last 2 quarters but, as it’s Q4, likely increasing from a higher base. Microsoft highlight that 8 points of this growth was from AI services.
Amy Hood (CFO) states that AI demand is higher than Microsoft’s currently available capacity but they expect availability to increase in H2 FY25 aka Jan 2025 onwards.
Server Products grew by 2% this quarter, again driven by hybrid BYOL use with Azure Hybrid Benefit.
Overall growth over the last 5 quarters looks like this:
Overall business and FY25
In terms of how Microsoft are spending money, Amy Hood, CFO, stated that:
“Cloud and AI related spend represents nearly all of total capital expenditures [CAPEX]. Within that, roughly half is for infrastructure needs where we continue to build and lease datacenters that will support monetization over the next 15 years and beyond. The remaining cloud and AI related spend is primarily for servers, both CPUs and GPUs, to serve customers based on demand signals.”
Amy Hood gave her expectations for Q1 FY25 (and beyond) and they are:
Productivity and Business Processes
Expected revenue growth of between 10% and 11% in constant currency (or $20.3 to $20.6 billion), with O365 driven by E5 and Copilot for M365.
Intelligent Cloud
Expected revenue growth of 18 – 20% (or $28.6 to $28.9 billion) with Azure expected to be 28% – 29% up.
Earnings Call highlights
42 mentions of Copilot.
Number of customers with 10,000+ licenses of Copilot for Microsoft 365 doubled quarter over quarter,
Industry specific Copilots are here. DAX Copilot for Healthcare (over on the Nuance side of the portfolio) has over 400 customers currently.
Over 1,000 paying customers of Copilot for Security. Satya Nadella also states they have “1.2 million security customers” <– that indicates a lot of potential growth for Copilot there!
60,000+ Open AI customers – with average spend per customer increasing.
GitHub Copilot accounts for over 40% of GitHub’s revenue and is bigger than GitHub was when Microsoft acquired it.
36,000 Azure Arc customers, a 90% YoY increase.
14,000+ paying Microsoft Fabric customers.
48 million Monthly Active Users of Power Platform, a 40% YoY increase.
Over 40,000 organisations using Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Over 3 million users of Teams Premium.
More large-scale SAP workloads being migrated to Azure.
There was further growth in the “number of 10-million-dollar-plus and 100-million-dollar-plus contracts for both Azure and Microsoft 365“
Much like a modern Augustus Gloop or Marjorie Dursley, Copilot for Microsoft 365 keeps expanding!
On June 12th, Microsoft added several more eligible base licenses for the Copilot add-on meaning the full list is now:
Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
Microsoft 365 Business Basic
Microsoft 365 Business Standard
Microsoft 365 Business Premium
Microsoft 365 E3/E5 (A3/A5)
Microsoft 365 F1/F3
Office 365 E1/E3 (A3/A5)
Office 365 F3
Exchange Online
SharePoint Online
OneDrive for Business
Microsoft Clipchamp
Microsoft Teams EEA/Enterprise/Essentials
Planner Plan 1
Project Online
Visio Online
I haven’t seen any news that Copilot has new capabilities that relate to these new licenses so I struggle to see the point of these scenarios. If I have Project Online or Clipchamp or Visio but not Apps for Business/Enterprise…why would I buy Copilot for M365?
Perhaps we’re about to see an expansion in Copilot’s capabilities in the new FY?
Let’s take a look at Microsoft’s financial results for Q3 FY24 (Jan – Mar 24) and, in a not surprising move at all – they’re pretty good!
Headline Numbers
Revenue = $61.9 billion (17% increase)
Net income = $21.9 billion (20% increase)
Within that, “Microsoft Cloud” was $35.1 billion, an increase of 23% year on year.
Productivity & Business Processes
Revenue = $19.6 billion (up 12%)
Office 365 Commercial revenue increased 15%
Commercial seats grew 8% driven by SMB and Frontline SKUs again
LinkedIn increase 10%
Dynamics 365 grew 19%
Intelligent Cloud
Revenue = $26.7 billion (up 21%)
Azure grew 31% – yet again the growth percentage increases for another quarter. Interestingly, server licenses were up 6% due to hybrid and BYOL licensing.
Earnings Call Highlights
“Copilot” features 47 times in the transcript
Office 365 ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) grew thanks to E5 and Copilot
Enterprise Mobility & Security (EMS) now has 274 million seats, up 10%
Azure Arc now has 33,000 customers
The average size and length of Azure deals has increased
The number of 100 million dollar-plus Azure deals increased over 80% year-over-year (YoY) while the number of 10 million dollar-plus deals more than doubled
Over 11,000 customers for Microsoft Fabric <– How many of those are simply Power BI Premium users who have moved over early?
30,000 organisations using Copilot for Studio to customize Copilot for Microsoft 365 and/or make their own
PowerApps users are now at 25 million per month, a 40% increase YoY
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 