Microsoft announce that there will be per user per month price increases for the following products from 1 March, 2022:
Find the announcement from Microsoft here: https://bit.ly/3kdqvBg.
Microsoft announce the public preview of SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, the next version of the on-premises SharePoint Server product.
Back in September 2020 they announced (https://bit.ly/3j8SrEy) that the next versions of Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, Skype for Business Server, and Project Server would only be available with the purchase of a subscription licence entitling organisations to support, product updates, and security patches. Project Server Subscription Edition is a part of the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition installation and thus also available for preview.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/2W34YTx.
Microsoft confirm that the Skype for Business Online service is retired. It’s replaced, of course, by Teams, and organisations that haven’t yet made a full transition from Skype for Business Online can find useful information here: https://bit.ly/3muR2gh.
This retirement does not affect the Skype consumer service or Skype for Business Server products.
There’s an updated (April 2021) Azure Stack Hub Licensing Guide with information added throughout about buying from partners. Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/2VuwuZD.
There’s an updated (July 2021) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with 3 changes of note.
Firstly, Fraud Protection transactions can now be paid for on a consumption basis against an Azure Subscription – find the details on our blog here: https://bit.ly/3i5WCTw.
Secondly, there are some changes to Business Central capacity – find the details on our blog here: https://bit.ly/3i68DbO.
And finally, there’s some clarification added to the definition of the Average Order Value specifying that it’s the Gross Merchandise Value (total value of all transactions processed through Dynamics 365) divided by the total transaction volume.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3qIoik1.
Microsoft add a new section for each product category on the Product Terms website to make it easy to find related resources.
For instance, check out this link to the Microsoft Cloud App Security page (https://bit.ly/371z6Rb) where you can easily access the Licensing Datasheet as well as the relevant product and docs sites.
Microsoft make some changes to the way that Business Central Database capacity is assigned, accrued, and acquired from July 2021. Historically, the first Business Central Essentials or Premium license enabled 80 GB of Business Central Database storage for the tenant, and this remains unchanged, but now individual licences accrue additional capacity: 3 GB for Premium, 2 GB for Essentials, and 1 GB for the Device licence. Customers could buy Capacity Add-on in increments of 1 GB, and may continue to do that, but there’s a new 100 GB Add-on with its own special Overage Add-on which offers advantageous pricing for further 1 GB increases.
Find the relevant Microsoft docs page here: https://bit.ly/2Ty9t7w.
Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection customers can now pay for their Fraud Protection transactions on a PAYG basis each month. There are three pricing tiers for each workload with, as you’d expect, prices decreasing as the number of transactions increases. To enable monthly billing, customers need to purchase a monthly Fraud Protection PAYG license for $12 per month, and then choose the Azure Subscription that they want the Fraud Protection transactions billed against.
You can find details of the different pricing tiers and setup instructions here: https://bit.ly/3BCWToL.
Extended Security Updates are critical if you want to continue safely running Windows Server and SQL Server workloads on versions that are out of support.
Extended Security Updates have been available for SQL Server/Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 since support ended, but will themselves end on July 9, 2022 and January 14, 2023 respectively. If you’re running these older products in Azure then you get 3 years of free Extended Security Updates, and Microsoft have just announced that one more year of Extended Security Updates will be available only on Azure.
It’s also time to think about support ending for SQL Server 2012 on July 12, 2022, and for Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 on October 23, 2023. 3 years of Extended Security Updates will once again be available and, again, they will be free for customers running these versions in Azure. Customers will also be able to purchase ESUs through an Enterprise Agreement for on-premises workloads if they have active Software Assurance on their licences. They will just need to buy licences for the servers they need to cover, and costs will be 75% of the licence cost for the first year, 100% of the licence cost for the second year, and 125% of the licence cost for the third year.
You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3zg0KWL, find a datasheet here: https://bit.ly/3hMnNm6, and access a Customer FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3iskboG.
Microsoft release some customer purchasing guidance, comparing CSP, the EA, Web Direct, and buying via the Microsoft Customer Agreement direct from Microsoft.
You can read the article here: https://bit.ly/3igCnRR, and/or get a standalone summary guide here: https://bit.ly/3xKVcmF.