Microsoft announce that when Exchange Server SE and Skype for Business Server SE become available in July 2025 there will be some price increases. These two products, along with SharePoint Server SE will increase by 10%, and the Core CAL Suite and Enterprise CAL Suite will increase by 15% and 20% respectively.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3RwWtJU.
Windows Autopatch, a cloud service to automate updates, was originally available only to Windows 10/11Enterprise E3/E5 or VDA licensed customers. Microsoft announce that from April 2025 it’s also available to Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft 10/11 Education A3/A5 customers.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/42WQ0OI, and confirmation of the licensing requirements here: https://bit.ly/4lHweOw.
Microsoft announce that Hotpatching is now available for Windows 11 Enterprise. It’s designed to help protect organisations from cyberattacks, while minimising user disruptions since Hotpatch updates don’t require a PC to be restarted.
Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/4jfQPrC, along with details on how the technology works and how to get started.
Microsoft announce Purview Data Security Investigations (DSI). This is a solution that enables organisations to rapidly identify and mitigate risks from sensitive data exposure. DSI will be in public preview in late April 2025 and administrators will need to activate Purview PAYG billing and provision Security Compute Units.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/42X9KSk.
Microsoft introduce new Pay-As-You-Go meters for Purview to help customers effectively secure and govern data as it moves into and through AI apps and agents. The meters are available from 1 May, 2025 and billed, as usual, through an Azure Subscription. If you don’t have an Azure Subscription linked to your tenant on 30 June, 2025, then these metered capabilities will stop working.
Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/42U3HwH.
Microsoft add Windows 10 ESU Cloud Managed licenses to the April 2025 Product Terms. As a reminder, these are aimed at organisations who are managing updates using Intune or Windows Autopatch and will be offered at a 25% discount from the regular ESUs. If you want a refresher on Windows lifecycle management, then this Windows IT Pro video is worth a watch: https://bit.ly/4jIyXFC.
There’s an updated (March 2025) Windows 11 Qualifying Operating System requirements licensing guidance document from Microsoft. It’s an update to a November 2021 document and has a couple of new FAQs: one around the QOS requirements for the new Windows 365 Link device, and another around macOS devices.
Find this updated document here: https://bit.ly/42ufOkZ.
In May 2024 Microsoft announced that Microsoft Entra Permissions Management (MEPM) capabilities were available to be enabled in Defender for Cloud as part of the paid-for Defender CSPM plan. The standalone MEPM product is now being retired – in April 2025 it’s removed from the Product Terms and not available for new EA and direct customers, and won’t be available for new CSP customers from 1 May, 2025. From 1 October 2025 the product will retire, and support will be discontinued.
You can find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3RvCcEq, and assurance that nothing will change in the Defender for Cloud experience here: https://bit.ly/42EWNvf.
Microsoft announce the general availability of Security Compute Units that can be used as overage for Security Copilot. Customers provision the regular SCUs as usual but now, if they are exhausted in a particular hour, you can opt in to the consumption of overage SCUs. This can be either an unlimited amount or up to a maximum that you specify. Overage is then charged on a PAYG basis at a rate of $6 per hour compared to the regular price of $4 per hour.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4cFAry8, and information on managing SCUs here: https://bit.ly/4jsb8lY.
There’s an updated (April 2025) Power Platform Licensing Guide. Microsoft introduced deep reasoning and Agent Flows in Copilot Studio in March 2025 (https://bit.ly/4jmTMH9) and the Licensing Guide is updated for those new innovations. When you implement these in your Agents you consume messages and now there’s a splendid table on page 19 which details the different types of activity and how many messages they consume. There’s also a reduction (from 30 to 10) in the number of messages required for answers grounded in the tenant graph.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4j4MMyq.