Cloudy with a chance of Licensing
Latest news on Microsoft licensing, Cloud, and AI
This category is for anything Microsoft related-so you’ll probably find that msot posts end up in here!
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.
“Audio Services” renamed “PSTN Audio Services”
Microsoft have announced their Q2 results for FY25 and, not surprisingly at all, they’ve earned a LOT of money and are talking a lot about AI!
Revenue was up 125 to $69.6 billion and Net Income was up 10% to $24.1 billion. The over-arching “Microsoft Cloud” segment increased 21% to $40.9 billion while the AI business was approx. $3.25 billion as it had an annual run rate of $13 billion, which is 175% up year on year.
Satya Nadella sad:
“We are innovating across our tech stack and helping customers unlock the full ROI of AI to capture the massive opportunity ahead,”
Revenue = $24.9 billion, up 14%
This was driven by a 16% increase in M365 Commercial cloud revenue and 19% revenue growth for Dynamics 365.
Microsoft saw “better-than-expected performance in E5 and M365 Copilot, both of which drove Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).
Revenue = $25.5 billion, up 19%
31% growth in Azure (and other cloud services)
CFO Amy Hood stated:
“Growth in our non-AI services was slightly lower than expected due to go-to-market execution challenges, particularly with our customers that we primarily reach through our scale motions, as we balance driving near-term non-AI consumption with AI growth.”
She described the “scale motion” as “customers we reach through partners and through more indirect methods of selling” and alluded to changes around where investments, marketing spend, and internal resources would be positioned to help drive sales through the partner channel.
Nadella also said “How do you really tweak the incentives go to market? At a time of platform shifts, you want to make sure you lean into even the new design wins, and you just don’t keep doing the stuff that you did in the previous generation.“
This could be partly behind Microsoft’s increasing drive to take more customers direct, that it gives them more control over what’s happening to drive organisations towards new platforms and products.
Check it out here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2025-Q2/press-release-webcast
Microsoft announce a price DECREASE!
Yes, you read that right…
From February 1st, 2025 GBP pricing for “commercial cloud services” will drop by 5% to 6%.
Hopefully this will help reduce the impact of some of the recent pricing increases…
Unfortunately…those of you purchasing in Brazilian Real will see a 12% increase on both cloud and on-prem software.
Microsoft’s Get Licensing Ready (GLR) training platform is being shut down as of December 31st, 2024.
A mainstay of the Microsoft channel and pretty much every reseller salesperson’s introduction to the wonderful world of Microsoft licensing, GLR has been a trusty companion to many for decades. It has been around as long as I can remember (so at least 20 years) but it is now a casualty of Microsoft’s apparent lack of interest in licensing these days.
My post on LinkedIn has been one of the most liked, commented, and reposted for some time -showing the depth of affection for the platform…and also the concern that it’s going to get even more difficult for partners and customers to understand Microsoft licensing.
I haven’t done GLR for a few years but I plan to take them all again and get one last set of certificates for posterity’s sake.
More Microsoft price rises coming in 2025, following on from several over the last few years:
Monthly SKUs
All licenses on a pay-Monthly basis on CSP, MCA-E, and Buy Online will increase by 5% from April 1st, 2025. These include:
Microsoft 365
Office 365
Enterprise Mobility + Security
Windows 365
Dynamics 365
Power Platform (Inc. Power BI)
NOT included are Azure RIs, Savings Plans, Marketplace, Github.
Power BI
From April 1st, 2025 Power BI pricing is increasing by up to 40%:
Power BI Pro will be $14 (currently $9.99)
Power BI Premium Per User will be $24 (currently $20)
This won’t increase the price of E5.
Teams Phone
From April 1st, 2025 Teams Phone SKUs are increasing by up to 25%
Teams Phone Standard will be $10 (currently $8)
Teams Phone Frontline will be $5 (currently $4)
Calling plans are increasing too.
See the Microsoft post here – https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/flexible-billing-for-microsoft-365-copilot-pricing-updates-for-annual-subscripti/4288536
So the rumours were true…kind of…to some degree.
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 😊
You can see the Microsoft post here:
After a delay of several hours where the website wasn’t working (one of the perils of this current format), we can now see the changes this month are:
This, taken from the Microsoft Learn page, is very odd:
Apparently, you can only use Windows Server PAYG if you install a retail copy of Windows Server 2025?!
We have also seen that there will be a 10% price increase for Windows Server 2025 & System Center 2025 from December 1st 2024 and then also for SPLA from January 1st, 2025.
The October 2024 Microsoft Product Terms are fairly quiet:
Self-Hosting & Disaster Recovery rights have been added to Windows Server & SQL Server subscription licenses under MCA.
Project is now “Planner & Project Plan 3/5”
GitHub Copilot Enterprise added
LTSC versions of Windows Enterprise and Office 2024 are added
Microsoft have introduced a new SKU: Office 365 E1 Plus. This contains the current E1 features and then adds:
It will be $20 per user per month or $17.75 without Teams. There is a minimum of 100 licenses and a maximum of 2,400.
Currently there is a promotion offering a 30% discount when purchased as an annual subscription.
This CSP only SKU is restricted to certain global regions:
LATAM, ASEAN, India and select markets in Central Asia, the Middle
East, and Africa
We’ve got some new M365 licenses added to EA, EAS, and MCA (CSP) – first up, a bunch more Frontline Worker SKUS:
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.”
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/introducing-python-in-excel-the-best-of-both-worlds-for-data/ba-p/3905482
Microsoft have added a section clarifying that Extended Security Updates (ESUs) don’t include support. Sounds like there’s been some confusion!
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 