Category Archives: Uncategorized

2025 – a year in the life of Licensing School

In the twelve months of 2025, Licensing School gave to you…965 LicenseVerse updates, 90+ new LicenseVerse pages, 140+ Licensing Guides, 84 live training courses, and 41 exams. Perhaps not as catchy as The Twelve Days of Christmas song, but much more useful we think! We’ve worked hard to keep our promise to you that we will help keep you up to date with licensing changes, learn about licensing, demonstrate your knowledge, and find all licensing information in one place. Thank you from the whole Licensing School team for being loyal followers and subscribers. Watch this space for bigger and better things next year!

If you’re not a subscriber and want to hear more about what you’re missing, please contact us on info@licensingschool.co.uk.

Office 365 and Microsoft 365 features and pricing update

Microsoft announce new features and price adjustments for Office 365 and Microsoft 365, scheduled for 2026.

The updates include incorporating Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 in the E3 licences, integrating more Intune features into Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, and adding 50 GB of mailbox storage to the Microsoft 365 Business plans. These enhancements come with a price increase ranging from 5% to 33% and will impact commercial and not-for-profit customers starting July 1, 2026. US government customers will see similar increases applied (where necessary) in two separate stages.

Details of the new features and price changes can be found here: https://bit.ly/3Mre86j, alongside the government-specific material here: https://bit.ly/4pqBqYy.

SQL Server 2025 licensing guidance

Following the recent release of SQL Server 2025, Microsoft have launched new licensing guidance. Rather than the usual detailed PDF, it’s now presented as a website, and while there’s less detail than previous versions, it’s a handy and easier-to-digest alternative to the Product Terms.

There aren’t major licensing changes with this release, but the guide does have helpful information on the new default reporting solution, Power BI Report Server. Be aware that the “Licensing SQL Components” section incorrectly lists three discontinued components. When we find issues like this, we document them for subscribers – check out the Licensing Guides Cautionary Notes in LicenseVerse here: https://bit.ly/LSLVLGCN.

Find the new SQL Server 2025 licensing guidance here: https://bit.ly/4pjdTJ4.

Dynamics 365 licensing resources

There are updated (December 2025) Dynamics 365 licensing resources now available.

As expected, the default Dataverse entitlements have been increased across the Dynamics 365 apps, and Dataverse and Operations storage is now combined into a shared pool per tenant– reflected in tables showing the new and consolidated amounts.

Find the original storage increase announcement here: https://bit.ly/4pmxYxS, and grab the Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/4p93Xlb and the Licensing Deck here: https://bit.ly/48KCn87.

Microsoft Agent 365

Microsoft Agent 365 is a control plane for AI Agents, helping businesses to deploy, organise, and govern AI Agents securely.

It gives each AI Agent its own Microsoft Entra Agent ID for identity, lifecycle, and access management, and allows Agents to be observable and managed in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. That’s where it’s currently in preview through the early-access Frontier program and, when you go to try it out, 25 Agent 365 licences are provisioned to your tenant for assignment to Agents.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/4ph3oFH, and the Learn documentation here: https://bit.ly/4rtf6Pn.

Power Platform licensing resources

There are updated (December 2025) Power Platform licensing resources now available. They are (mostly!) updated to reflect the default Dataverse Database capacity changes across Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages, with no other major changes.

You’ll find details in the Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/3K5bJO3, and its sidekick, the Licensing Deck is here: https://bit.ly/48re4uv.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Business promos

Microsoft have launched three introductory promotions for the newly released Microsoft 365 Copilot Business.

They’re available in CSP from December 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 for Microsoft 365 Business customers. The promotions include up to 15% off Copilot Business alone, up to 35% off when bundled with Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and up to 25% off when bundled with Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Discounts apply to annual commitment licences between 10 and 300 seats.

You’ll find these details in the Partner Center announcements here: https://bit.ly/4aupekQ, and more details in the Promo Readiness Guide: https://bit.ly/MSPromoGuide.

Subscribers can also explore all current and expired promotions in our brand new Promotions Playground: https://bit.ly/PromotionsPlayground.

Licensing terms for Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft have updated the terms for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to clarify its licensing requirements.

To recap, a licence is required for any user or mailbox that benefits from Defender for Office 365 protections. This includes users accessing their own or shared protected mailboxes, anyone using SharePoint, OneDrive, or Teams with Safe Attachments enabled, and those using Microsoft 365 apps or Teams with Safe Links active.

Although it’s possible to implement policies that restrict these features to specific users, this added wording is a useful reminder to be cautious when licensing tenant-level services.

You can find the recently added licensing terms here: https://bit.ly/48iV8OS.

Dynamics 365 ERP licence assignment

Changes to required user licence assignment for the Dynamics 365 ERP applications come into force from 15 January, 2026 and there are some useful resources if this affects you.

First of all, there’s some Microsoft partner training coming up on 10 December, 2025 and 7 January, 2026: https://bit.ly/49N0rZg.

Secondly, there’s a really useful Playbook for Partners which you can find here: https://bit.ly/43ZEoe5, and finally, the Learn documentation has been updated with some comprehensive information as organizations prepare for this change: https://bit.ly/4ioxlBo.

RIP SQL Web edition!

Microsoft has announced SQL Server Web edition is being discontinued, starting with the 2025 release. This makes SQL Server 2022 the final version to include the Web edition, which will remain supported until January 2033.

For cost-effective web applications, Microsoft recommend migrating to Azure SQL. It offers scalable solutions, flexible pricing, and elastic pools perfect for multi-tenant apps. If you’re planning to stay on-premises, the recommended path is to upgrade to the Standard edition.

You can find more details in the official SQL GA announcement: https://bit.ly/47N1XsO.