The Reservations family continues to grow with one and three years Reservations for Azure Dedicated Host available. Get the overview here: http://bit.ly/2VXbJ7b, understand how the discounts are applied here: http://bit.ly/2IMPUj3, and get pricing here: http://bit.ly/2KkxB6m.
If you want a review of Azure Dedicated Host licensing, then head over to this article on our blog: http://bit.ly/2OJ5Nwx.
Microsoft announce some changes to their plans for Firstline Workers, effective from 1 April, 2020. The existing Microsoft 365 F1 plan will be renamed to Microsoft 365 F3 and keep its $10 per user per month price, and a new plan (with a lesser set of functionality) will take the Microsoft 365 F1 name and have a price tag of $4 per user per month. Office 365 F1 is also renamed to Office 365 F3 and remains at $4 per user per month. All of the Firstline Worker plans will have additional Teams functionality added, as well as enhanced identity and access management features.
There’s a useful chart comparing what’s available in the different plans in the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3a6Qkg4.
Microsoft announce that an Office 365 ProPlus device add-on licence will be available for EA and EAS customers in the summer of 2020.
This will effectively allow an Office 365 ProPlus licence to be assigned to a device so that multiple users can use Office 365 ProPlus on that device, whether or not they have their own User SL for Office 365.
A similar add-on was made available in August 2019 for education customers with an EES, where the add-ons are free as long as all Education Qualified Users are licensed with an Office 365 ProPlus User SL.
Find the latest announcement for commercial customers here: http://bit.ly/2KSJjnB and recap on the education offer here: http://bit.ly/30enR2Z.
Azure Cost Management is a set of tools that helps customers and partners to feel in control of their spend on the Azure consumption services. Features are continually being added to this service and the February updates include new Power BI reports for EA customers, and greater visibility into the individual meter costs that make up the total cost for a resource. Find the update here: http://bit.ly/3aLFHPP.
FastTrack for Azure helps customers to accelerate the deployment of their Azure solutions and it’s at no cost from Microsoft for eligible customers.
Eligibility is focussed around having an identified Azure project supported by the FastTrack program that’s expected to reach at least $5,000 of service usage per month within 12 months of deployment.
FastTrack services have recently also become available in Japan (http://bit.ly/2Vk9jza) and countries in the Asia Pacific region (http://bit.ly/32qT6tn).
Find out more about FastTrack for Azure here: http://bit.ly/2kriyNO.
BizTalk Server 2020 is added to the March 2020 Product Terms document with information on page 15 detailing a customer’s allowable usage of Host Integration Server.
Essentially this is allowed when BizTalk Server Core licences are purchased, and the edition of BizTalk acquired defines the rights – for example BizTalk Server Branch Edition licences restrict the use of HIS software to branch office deployments.
Find the current Product Terms document here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.
A VDA Add-on for Microsoft 365 E3/E5 is added to page 57 of the March 2020 Product Terms
This Subscription Licence allows Microsoft 365 E3/E5 users to access a Windows Enterprise Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on dedicated servers when the users don’t have a primary device with a Qualifying Operating System – for example, users whose primary device is a thin client or a Mac. Note that these licences are only available to customers buying through an Enterprise Agreement.
Find the current Product Terms document here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.
If you want an easy way to check availability of the Azure products by region then this is useful page: http://bit.ly/39S81zt. Choose the product family and region(s) and then see whether services are generally available, in preview, or slated for future availability with expected timelines.
Microsoft make BizTalk Server 2020 available with the usual Standard, Enterprise and Branch editions. Find out what’s new here: http://bit.ly/2SP8BZ1.
There’s an updated (February 2020) Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Licensing Guide. There’s just a small change confirming the file formats that are supported when importing 3D models on page 6. Find this updated guide here: http://bit.ly/MixRealLGFeb2020.