With the announcement of Microsoft 365 E7 there’s renewed focus on the Microsoft Agent Factory – a program designed for customers that want to rapidly scale AI adoption in their organisation. It combines the Agent Pre-Purchase Plan, Forward Deployed Engineers, and tailored role-based AI training.
Partners can find resources here: https://bit.ly/4ljI6GK, and the comprehensive FAQ is definitely worth taking a look at.
There’s a new Licensing Guide for Windows Server 2025. Microsoft now publish it on a Licensing Guidance website rather than a PDF, so its main changes are shifts in the order and layout throughout to accommodate the new format. The useful FAQs are now separate, slightly confusingly no longer within the same document. There’s an erroneous mention of a rule from 2023 about minimum requirements when licensing by virtual machine, so we’ve added these details to our “Cautionary Notes”.
We want to make every version of these Licensing Guide updates available to everyone, so we’ve captured a PDF of the Licensing Guide and the FAQs. Find them here: https://bit.ly/4kLduxM, and here: https://bit.ly/4bm1a3J.
Subscribers can now view the details of “What’s New” and read the “Cautionary Notes” in our Licensing Guides Gallery: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery.
We’ve uncovered a new License Mobility Customer Verification Guide! Microsoft have updated the guide in March 2026 even though the publication date matches the last one from May 2025. The main changes are condensed instructions for “Where to find the License Verification Form” and a clean-up of references to the VLSC portal in favour of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. The removal of the instructions has led to a broken reference to step 5 on page 5, and many of the existing Cautionary Notes remain.
Subscribers can find all these details in our Licensing Guides Gallery. Although License Mobility has been somewhat sidelined by the newest kid on the block, the Flexible Virtualisation Benefit, it’s always nice to have the latest guide available.
Find it here: https://bit.ly/4rbl7yQ, or in our Licensing Guides Gallery here: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery.
After much speculation, Microsoft 365 E7, also known as The Frontier Worker Suite, is official, with a GA date of 1 May 2026. It builds on Microsoft 365 E5 by adding Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365, and the Entra Suite. With a standard monthly price of $99, three promotions are planned in May to coincide with the launch, offering discounts of between 10% and 20%. In line with the other Microsoft 365 licences, E7 will be available both with and without Teams.
Complementing the announcement, we’re provided with a raft of resources. The Microsoft 365 E7 Launch Kit is particularly useful, containing a Partner FAQ that’s well worth a read.
You can download this here: https://bit.ly/3MZo6g2 and find the launch announcements here: https://bit.ly/4s8ln39 and here: https://bit.ly/40Z1aAE.
There are updated (March 2026) Power Platform licensing resources now available. As seen in the Copilot Studio Licensing Guide, the Agent Pre-Purchase Plan once again gets the spotlight, taking the place of Pay-As-You-Go as the recommended offer on page 5 of both the Licensing Guide and Deck. Supplementing this are new references to Agent Commit Units tiers, the currency for combined use of Microsoft Foundry, Copilot Studio, Fabric, and GitHub Copilot services. The original version of the Licensing Deck had a duplicated page, but a second version was swiftly introduced – both can be found in our Licensing Guides Gallery for completionists!
Grab the updated Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/4slE0Ae and its sidekick, the (latest) Licensing Deck, here: https://bit.ly/4bkr3Ql.
The Agent Pre-Purchase Plan was launched back in November 2025 to make it easier to buy consumption units for Agents created through Microsoft Foundry and/or Copilot Studio. You buy 20,000, 100,000 or 500,000 Agent Commit Units and then have a year to use them on any of the supported services. What’s new? From February 2026 Microsoft Fabric and GitHub Copilot are added to the list of services that the ACUs can be used on.
This is a good overview article explaining how the Pre-Purchase Plan works with some good diagrams, including the list of supported services: https://bit.ly/4uonAJ0.
There are new (March 2026) Dynamics 365 licensing resources now available. In the Licensing Guide, there’s a slightly overdue clean up of references to Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Service, following their integration into Microsoft 365 Copilot. The Licensing Deck provides information and pricing about a new Step-up from Customer Service Enterprise to Customer Service Premium in the Step-up Options table on page 41.
Grab the Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/3MFAIc5 and the supplementary Licensing Deck here: https://bit.ly/4cnMWjZ.
The March 2026 Modern Work Plan Comparison documents have been refreshed, with the exception of the Education flavour, which remains unchanged since December 2025. The first change is the renaming of Exchange Online Protection to “Built-in security Add-on for cloud mailboxes”. It’s a rather confusing name that inaccurately describes it and inconsistently appears under two other guises on the Microsoft websites and price lists.
There’s some updated housekeeping on retention policies, with the Purview Suites updated to correctly show their inclusion, mirroring recently updated Learn documentation. The latest PDFs for Enterprise, SMB, US Government, and Education sectors can be accessed in our searchable Licensing Guides Gallery: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery.
Click the “Microsoft 365” filter to view the documents and full details of What’s New and any Cautionary Notes – a feature exclusive to our subscribers. Non-subscribers can find them here: https://bit.ly/4hn2hS2. Partners looking for the Excel version can email info@licensingschool.co.uk from your work email address, and we’ll send it right over.
Microsoft announce new ASUS and Dell Cloud PC devices for Windows 365. They’re due in the third quarter of 2026 and are compact, streamlined, and optimised to boot straight to Windows 365, receiving automatic updates and managed via Microsoft Intune. These offerings extend the Cloud PC device range beyond Microsoft’s own Windows 365 Link, which was the first of its kind.
Find the details here: https://bit.ly/3OHxvcA.
Microsoft have announced that three products released in 2016 will receive Extended Security Updates for up to three years.
The first two are Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2016, which have an End of Support date of 13 October 2026, and, finally, Windows Server 2016, with an End of Support date of 12 January 2027. The Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 Extended Security Updates will be available via Volume Licensing and CSP, while the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2016 Extended Security Updates will be offered only through IoT OEMs.
Pricing and availability details for Windows Server 2016 are forthcoming, but all the current information including some pricing can be found in the Windows IT Pro Blog: https://bit.ly/4spqXhm.