Category Archives: Uncategorized

Microsoft 365 Apps and Windows 10 End of Support

Windows 10 finally reached its end of support on October 14, 2025. Originally the impact of this deadline meant that running the Microsoft 365 Apps on it would not be supported. This would have affected the two types of updates available for the Microsoft 365 Apps: feature updates for functionality and performance improvements, and the separate security updates for critical patches and bug fixes. Microsoft have since announced an extension on both, with feature updates continuing up to January 12, 2027 (depending on your chosen update channel), and security updates continuing until October 10, 2028.

You can find full details here: http://bit.ly/4qaDXqK.

Microsoft 365 Premium

Microsoft announce Microsoft 365 Premium, a new offering exclusively for consumers. Not to be confused with Microsoft 365 Business Premium, this subscription combines Microsoft 365 Family with Copilot Pro, allowing six users access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote, along with 1 TB of cloud storage each. There are also advanced AI features only available to the subscription owner, which include the highest available usage limits and the powerful reasoning agents Researcher and Analyst.

Find the details of the announcement here: http://bit.ly/4n1o2Ii.

Dynamics 365 licensing resources

There are updated (October 2025) Dynamics 365 licensing resources. There aren’t major changes: a new purchasing options table, some amendments to the Commerce and Finance Security Roles sections, and the renaming of Project Operations Lite to Project Operations Core.

Find the updated Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/3VOllPl, and the Licensing Deck here: https://bit.ly/3IKZLIC.

Windows 365 updates

There are two updates for Windows 365. First of all, Windows 365 Frontline is generally available in Dedicated Mode for Government Community Cloud (GCC) and GCC High customers – find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4h15yXf. And, secondly, Cross-Region Disaster Recovery, previously only available as an Add-on licence to Windows 365 Enterprise is now also available for Windows 365 Frontline in Dedicated Mode.

Find the announcement article with useful information on how it all works here: https://bit.ly/3IYJWOt.

Microsoft 365 Local and SE products

Microsoft introduced us to the notion of their Sovereign Private Cloud in June 2025 (see the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3KYvuqj). It’s designed for customers who need to meet strict sovereignty requirements and combines Azure Local and Microsoft 365 Local. Azure Local’s been around a while, but Microsoft 365 Local is new. It’s built on the Azure Local infrastructure, and enables organisations to deploy the traditional Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Skype for Business Server products entirely within their sovereign environment. To that end, the new SE versions of these products will be supported until at least 31 December, 2035.

Find information on Microsoft 365 Local here: https://bit.ly/3Wosztx, and the earliest End of Support date information here: https://bit.ly/48QNrRC.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

Microsoft announced back in July 2025 (see the article here: https://bit.ly/477RoR8) that Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence (MDTI) would be made available free of charge for Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel customers. This is due to happen in several phases with completion by the first half of 2026, with existing customers having access to their current MDTI experience until the product is retired on 1 August, 2026.

And the new news? The October 2025 Product Terms is updated with the removal of the standalone MDTI licences.

Licence management for Dynamics 365 ERP apps

Microsoft announce a change to the schedule for the licence enforcement of the Dynamics 365 ERP apps. The original date when licences needed to be assigned to users was 1 September, 2025 and that was then moved out to 1 November, 2025. Now the date is the customer’s first anniversary/renewal after 15 January, 2026. After that time unlicensed users will get alerts 30 days before the renewal, and then if licences aren’t assigned within 15 days of the anniversary/renewal date, users will lose access to the apps.

You can find an updated announcement here: https://bit.ly/4pSzaKd, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3Kqzq39.

Subscription Editions added to SPLA

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition (SE) has long been available, and Microsoft made Exchange Server SE and Skype for Business Server SE generally available in July 2025 through the traditional Volume Licensing agreements. In the VL agreements you always need to have active SA on the Server and CAL licences to use the product, and thus there’s been a question mark over what happens in SPLA, especially since Exchange and Skype for Business come to end of support on 14 October, 2025. Well, the latest updates to the SPUR give us our answer – all three SE products are added for the October 2025 SPUR update.

Find the SPUR website here: https://bit.ly/4q0DmYK.

Microsoft rebrand security and compliance suites for Enterprise plans

Microsoft rebrand the security and compliance suite Add-ons for Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans from 1 October, 2025. This aligns the names with the recently introduced SMB security and compliance suites which you can read more about on our blog here: https://bit.ly/3IsVjhH. The functionality remains the same, with Microsoft 365 E5 Security now becoming the Microsoft Defender Suite, and Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance becoming the Microsoft Purview Suite.

Find out the details here: https://bit.ly/46R1KTE.

Changes to price levels for Online Services

Microsoft announce that they will remove the programmatic discount price levels for Online Services in the EA and MPSA from 1 November, 2025. Existing customers will be affected by this change at their next agreement renewal or when they purchase new Online Services not on their Customer Price Sheet after 1 November. There’s no change to the price levels for on-premises software and the price lists for US Government and education customers aren’t affected.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/45Ivy5J.