Microsoft announce the next stage in the journey to Planner – the retirement of Project for the web in August 2025.
The announcement is here: https://bit.ly/4k6FJFW, and there’s a comprehensive FAQ here: https://bit.ly/43zxg7d for details on all the twists and turns in the (quite complicated) journey.
Microsoft announce that SQL Server 2025 is now in public preview. There’s not much news on the licensing, apart from the introduction of SQL Server 2025 Standard Developer Edition. The Developer Edition has long been based on SQL Server Enterprise and this new edition will enable developers to test their apps that will use Standard edition in production. It will continue to be a free edition for dev and test purposes.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/44NKcbU.
Microsoft announce that Copilot for Finance has been renamed to Finance Agents, with features like Data Reconciliation being renamed to the Financial Reconciliation Agent.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/43yDZyg.
There’s a change to the plans for the licence management features in the Dynamics 365 RP apps – see the original article on our blog to get up to speed: https://bit.ly/44VJg58. The new plans mean that users who don’t meet licensing requirements will get notifications from 1 September, 2025 and licences must be assigned in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center by 1 November, 2025 – moved out from 1 September, 2025.
Find the edited announcement here: https://bit.ly/446ehTx.
Microsoft announce the public preview of Microsoft Entra Agent ID, an identity and access management solution for AI Agents. It currently enables you to see and manage Agents in the Microsoft Entra Admin Center with more capabilities for identity protection and governance coming over the next six months. No word yet on costs or licensing.
Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3F4xNG2.
There’s an updated (May 2025) Power Platform Licensing Guide with two main changes. Firstly, there’s the addition of Dataverse built-in and self-service Disaster Recovery options on page 32, and secondly there’s a new table on page 27 showing the consumption rates of AI Builder capabilities when used in Copilot Studio Agents.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/42Ys24q.
Microsoft announce that prices for Dynamics 365 Business Central will increase from 1 October, 2025. A Device licence increases from $40 to $45 per device per month, the Essentials licence from $70 to $80, and the Premium licence from $100 to $110. At the same time, the amount of storage accrued with each licence is being increased too.
Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3YRcezr.
There are updated (May 2025) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with some small changes getting everything up to date: adding Microsoft 365 Business Premium as an eligible prerequisite for Microsoft 365 E5 Security, for example.
These useful documents tell you which of the (many) different components are included in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plan, and there’s a table for SMB customers (https://bit.ly/434vH29), one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/3F5GCzh), and one for Education customers (https://bit.ly/4muUpQX), and still more for specialist US customers – one for GCC (https://bit.ly/437WyJe), one for GCC High (https://bit.ly/4kgHD6C) and the final one for DoD (https://bit.ly/3YJxpTY).
And, if you’re a partner, we do have an April 2025 Excel version of these files. Drop us an email on info@licensingschool.co.uk from your work email address and we’ll send it on.
Microsoft announce that Windows Update for Business has a new name: Windows Update Client Policies. The name change is intended to indicate that the service is a powerful tool for organisations of all sizes. There’s no change to the functionality, and you can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/44CPd72.
Microsoft announce that Customer Service workspace (the successor to the Customer Service Hub: https://bit.ly/3Z9V67h ) has been rebranded to Copilot Service workspace to align with Microsoft’s “AI-first vision”.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3GOZeE1, where you’ll also find that, going forward, a bot in Customer Service will be referred to as an Agent, while Customer Service humans become representatives.