Visual Studio Subscriptions have been added to MCA
Windows 10 ESU added to CSP
Microsoft Defender & Microsoft Purview Suites have now been made available to Business Premium users
That last point is very interesting as this brings a world of new security features to smaller organisations – which will have multiple impacts:
1) directly increase the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of SMB customers as they buy new add-ons 2) increase the chances of SMB customers adopting Copilot – as these new products address many of the security/data challenges… 2b) which will further increase the ARPU of SMB customers
Microsoft have long been calling out the strength of SMB driving M365 sales so this is a logical next step.
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’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.
While we’re still awaiting the full release, which could be July 1st or perhaps during Microsoft Inspire later that month, we do have more information available.
Eligible base licenses are:
Microsoft 365 E3 Microsoft 365 E5 Microsoft 365 Business Standard Microsoft 365 Business Premium
And users need to have an Azure AD account too. This is a clear indication that Copilot will be an extra add-on license.
Furthermore, their M365 Apps must be on “Current Channel” or the “Monthly Enterprise Channel” to access Co-pilot.
I haven’t seen any indication of pricing yet but I’m thinking perhaps £10 for E3 and £5 for E5? With some promos at first of course.
*Update* It turns out I was way off base! Microsoft have confirmed the price is $30 per user per month. More info and examples here.
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.
Microsoft Cloud Healthcare Add-on: This can be added onto M365 E3/E5, Power Apps/Automate/BI, or a range of D365 licenses
GitHub Enterprise Æ <– 👀 Not sure if this is the actual name or a typo! As a couple of people have pointed out, it’s got a bit of an Elon Musk vibe 😂
Couple of promotions added too…
Free Audio Conferencing licenses for EA, EAS, and EES customers: You need to have a paid sub with Teams. Requires min. 20% Teams adoption within 6 months Not available in China or India
Free audio conferencing for CSP & Web direct: Free (up to) 12 months licenses are available via the admin portal, not in China or India.
First of all – we need to consider Project Cortex. This is a Microsoft program to weave Artificial Intelligence (AI) into a range of their products to help users and serves as something of an “umbrella”. SharePoint Syntex is the first product “from” Project Cortex but there are clear plans from Microsoft for several more to follow.
What does SharePoint Syntex do?
Introducing the concept of “topic centers”, SharePoint Syntex aims to automatically replicate the way that humans process documents including recognizing content, extracting information, and applying metadata tags. It works across Office docs, PDFs, and images and is another example of Microsoft’s move towards Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – alongside their advances with the Power Platform and Microsoft 365 E3.
For organisations processing a lot of data within documents – such as CVs, proposals, articles etc. – this could represent a new way for them to work smarter, not harder. Utilising AI to perform many of these tasks will free up human users for higher value projects. Microsoft are working on connectors to enable organisations to pull data from 3rd party systems into the Microsoft Graph and then utilise it within SharePoint Syntex.
At launch, it only supports English and Microsoft plan to add additional languages “in 2021”. They do say however, that you can create bespoke “topics” in any language and that certain functions, such as processing forms content, are language agnostic.
SharePoint Syntex is available as an add-on license for commercial Microsoft 365 customers and costs $5 per user per month. It appears to be available for the Microsoft 365 Business SKUs as well as the Enterprise suites.
Anyone who will be “using, consuming, or otherwise benefitting from” the capabilities of SharePoint Syntex will need a license. Microsoft list out a range of scenarios that require licenses including where users:
Access a Content Center
Create a document understanding model in a Content Center
Upload content to a library where a document understanding model is associated (whether in a Content Center or elsewhere)
Manually execute a document understanding model
View a library where a document understanding model is associated
Create a forms processing model via the entry point in a SharePoint library
Upload content to a library where a forms processing model is associated
View a library where a forms processing model is associated
This creates a whole new set of circumstances for organisations to become under-licensed and to have those wonderful, bordering on the philosophical conversations with Microsoft like “What IS the definition of benefiting?”, “What exactly is a “capability”?” etc 😁
Nothing major but a couple of interesting SQL Server bits:
1) A clause that, if you’re using SQL in Azure via Azure Hybrid Rights or DR rights, you must indicate it in the portal/API.
2) If you acquire SQL 2017 from an OEM before March 31, 2020 – you can add Software Assurance within 90 days of purchase.
That first addition feels audit related doesn’t it? While it makes sense that organisations indicate where they’re using their licenses and which Software Assurance benefits they’re using etc. – it definitely feels like Microsoft are getting things lined up for the next generation of license compliance audits which will look at cloud environments too.
Also, slightly interestingly, the Online Service Terms (OST) won’t be published until January 8th. Whether this is because people are still on holiday or due to a major change being announced – we’ll have to wait and see! 😊
Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (MDATP) for “cross-platform devices”. Available only via the EA/EAS volume licensing programmes, this allows MDATP to be run on up to 5 non-Windows devices concurrently.
Power Virtual Agents are added, with no extra info. These aim to enable anyone to create AI-powered chat bots and look to be a new member of the Power Platform:
There are a couple of lines added covering the recently announced Intune access for SCCM users. This confirms SA is required on the existing licenses but, perhaps a little confusingly, doesn’t mention the “Microsoft Endpoint Manager” name at all.
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 