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Microsoft Visio comes to Teams for free


Bringing Visio to Microsoft 365: Diagramming for everyone | Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft are adding a cut down version of Visio directly into Teams, enabling users to create, edit, and share diagrams without leaving the ever growing central location for productivity. The new app will be available to users with the following licenses:

  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium
  • Microsoft 365 Apps for business
  • Office 365 E1
  • Office 365 E3
  • Office 365 E5
  • Office 365 F3
  • Microsoft 365 F3 (includes Office 365 F3)
  • Microsoft 365 E3 (includes Office 365 E3)
  • Microsoft 365 E5 (includes Office 365 E5)
  • Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
  • Office 365 A1
  • Office 365 A3
  • Office 365 E5
  • Microsoft 365 A1 (one-time, per-device license with free Office 365 A1 per user licenses)
  • Microsoft 365 A3 (includes Office 365 A3)
  • Microsoft 365 A5 (includes Office 365 A5)

You can see more info, and sign up for early access (not EU), here.

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Azure Virtual Desktop


Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) has been renamed to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) – a name change that suggests a broadening of its capabilities and market positioning. More than just a rebrand though, Microsoft have added a range of new capabilities as well as new licensing options.

Typically, AVD is licensed via users’ existing Microsoft 365 licenses but Microsoft have added a new “per-user” app streaming option, aimed at enabling organisations to offer AVD SaaS solutions to external users and customers.

Pricing

Currently AVD per-user is on promotional pricing meaning that “streaming first-party or third-party applications to external users” can be done free of charge from July 14, 2021 to December 31, 2021. From January 1, 2022 pricing will be:

  • $5.50 per user per month (Apps only)
  • $10 per user per month (Apps + Desktops)

You can see Microsoft’s announcement here.

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Windows 11: Microsoft’s new operating system


Introducing Windows 11 | Windows Experience Blog

Despite us all believing that Windows 10 was the last version of Windows…here we are with Windows 11 announced and fast approaching.

What do we know?

Microsoft have said “holiday season 2021” so I’d imagine it will be available in time for Black Friday with things really ramping up for Xmas.

Not all devices running Windows 10 will be able to run the new OS:

You can download the Health Check app here to find out. There is a requirement for TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chips and, according to TechRadar, many devices that have one may have them disabled by default – which means the Health Check app fails machines which, ultimately, will be able to run Windows 11. Before you go an buy a new machine, take a look and see if you’ve got a TPM chip to enable!

One has to wonder what this might mean for businesses – is Windows 11 going to require a big wave of hardware refreshes? If so, I can see Windows 10 becoming the new Windows XP!

What’s new?

Some of the key changes include:

  • Keyboard optimised for touch and tablet use
  • Snap layouts – let you arrange multiple windows in various configurations, you can see some of the options here:
Introducing Windows 11 | Windows Experience Blog
  • You will also be able to create multiple fully separated desktops.
  • “Chat from Teams” integrated into the taskbar and the ability to use 2-way SMS messaging.
  • Revamped Microsoft Store which will include Android apps via a partnership with Intel and Amazon.
  • Annual updates rather than the current 2 per year.
  • The Taskbar will be centered and, it seems, will have to be positioned at the bottom of the screen. I’ve had mine at the top for years (it’s the best place to have it!) and can imagine this being enough to keep me on 10 for a while! 🤣

Further Reading

Microsoft blog

Windows 11 specs

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Microsoft Product Terms: June 2021


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There was a pretty big change this month as Microsoft removed a key requirement for “From SA” licenses. These allow organisations that have on-premises licenses with Software Assurance (SA) to migrate to Microsoft 365 at a reduced price – taking into account the investment in SA.

Back in early 2020, Microsoft added a clause that customers had to retain their existing on-premises licenses throughout the “From SA” subscription period. This presented a barrier for organisations in Europe looking to engage in the 2nd-hand software market and re-sell their (now unwanted) on-premises licenses.

However, in June 2021 Microsoft said:

For customers who choose to purchase “From SA” licenses, we removed the requirement that customer retain the corresponding Qualifying Licenses throughout its From SA license subscription period

It’s a very interesting move from Microsoft and I am keen to see what related announcements we might see at their Inspire conference in July.

Further changes include:

Windows 10 Enterprise/E3 has been removed as a pre-requisite for the M365 F5 add-on SKUs.

Remote Work Starter Plan added to CSP <– This seems to have launched in Japan in August 2020 and looks to be basically a “Teams+OneDrive” SKU

 Customers with Microsoft Project Plan 1/3/5 are only permitted to use Universal Resource Scheduling to schedule Project and Task tables within the context of a project

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Microsoft Product Terms: May 2021


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Here are the Microsoft Product Terms changes for May 2021:

M365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium added as pre-requisite licenses for Audio Conferencing and Phone System

Microsoft 365 Career Coach USL has been added for Academic customers

Microsoft 365 Scheduler has been added. This includes a “human-assisted AI Service” for complex scheduling requests.

Microsoft Teams: Terms added to confirm licenses are not required to join meetings/live events hosted by licensed users. Also that external users don’t need a license for Guest access via AAD External Identity.

Power Platform: All Power Platform licenses now have “extended term eligibility” under EA/EAS/SCE

A relaxing of the terms around Project for the web and how the data can be viewed.

Various Azure services have had updated terms.

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IBM acquire Turbonomic


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Another cloud management tool has been acquired by a large software vendor – this time it’s IBM snapping up Turbonomic.

If you’re not familiar with them, Turbonomic use AI to optimize and manage cloud resources, including reducing cloud costs, across VMs, Databases, Containers, Storage and more. This is further progress in IBM’s quest to become a cloud & company…according to them they are now the only vendor who can

“provide customers with AI-powered automation capabilities that span from AIOps to application and infrastructure observability”

So many cloud companies have been purchase over the last couple of years and Turbonomic have been at the forefront for a while. I remember thinking a few years ago that Microsoft would buy them so I’m not surprised they’ve been acquired at all – and it seems a logical step for IBM. I wonder if the technology will get lost within IBM’s enormous array of products and SKUs?

See IBM’s announcement here.

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Microsoft Financial Results: Q3 FY21


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Microsoft’s financial results for Q3 FY21 (Jan – Mar 21) are in and, as usual, they’re pretty impressive.

  • Revenue = $41.7 billion – up 19%
  • Operating income = $17 billion – up 31%

Looking at the different product divisions we can see:

Productivity & Business Processes

Revenue = $13.6 billion – up 15%

Office 365 Commercial was up 22%, LinkedIn increased 25%, and Dynamics 365 was up 45%.

Microsoft Teams is up to 145 million daily active users, almost doubling YoY and Office 365 Commercial has nearly 300 million paid seats. Office Commercial products (on-premises Office) was down 25% – continuing its downwards trend as organisations continue to move to the cloud.

Satya Nadella revealed that Power Platform now has almost 16 million monthly active users, an increase of 97%, and revenue has increased by 84%. Amy Hood (CFO) called out Power Apps and Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations as strong performers.

Intelligent Cloud

Revenue = $15.1 billion – up 23%

Azure growth was 50% yet again, with Amy Hood highlighting an increase in the number of large, long-term Azure contracts.

On-premises server products grew 3%, although that seems to largely be due to year on year currency fluctuations, and the EMS install base grew again, now sitting at 174 million seats.

SQL Server on Azure VMs grew 129% YoY alongside Cosmos DB growth too.

More Personal Computing

Revenue = $13 billion – up 19%

Again there was a big difference in Windows OEM as Pro revenue declined 2% but non-Pro grew 44%.

See the Microsoft details here.

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Microsoft acquire Nuance


Microsoft announced this month ( April 2021) that they’ve acquired Nuance Communications for $19.7 billion – their 2nd biggest acquisition behind LinkedIn.

You may be familiar with Nuance for their Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software and/or Power PDF but the focus for Microsoft is their work in the Healthcare sector – much of which is built on Azure. It follows Microsoft’s announcement of their “Cloud for Healthcare” vertical offering and clearly indicates they see it as a growth market for them; they believe it will bring their Total Addressable Market to $500 billion in the healthcare provider space – even a small piece of that will make that $20 billion seem like small change!

Going forward, Nuance will be included within Microsoft’s “Intelligent Cloud” division and Nuance will retain its CEO, Mark Benjamin, who will report into Scott Guthrie – executive vice president of Cloud & AI at Microsoft.

See Microsoft’s announcement here.

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Microsoft Product Terms – April 2021


Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

Very little activity this month:

Updates to the CAL/ML Equivalency tables to make them clearer
Updates to Dynamics 365 Purchasing Minimums table
Updated Azure Maps API results clause to include Weather

I can’t help but feel like there are some big things coming in a couple of months…

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Microsoft EMS & Intune price increases


Image by NikolayFrolochkin from Pixabay

Microsoft are adding a raft of new features to both EMS (Enterprise Mobility & Security) and Intune, these include:

  • Microsoft Tunnel VPN features for Android and iOS devices
  • Enhanced MacOS management capabilities
  • New endpoint analytics features
  • Various enhancements to Microsoft Endpoint Manager

These, and other, additions mean that Microsoft are putting the prices up. From July 1, 2021:

  • EMS E3 will increase from $9 pupm to $11
  • Intune will increase from $6 pupm to $8

However, the price for Microsoft 365 E3 won’t increase (and so one must assume that neither will E5) – making the bundle option that little bit more attractive.

See the Microsoft announcement here.

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