There’s an updated (February 2025) Step-up licenses licensing guidance document from Microsoft, with minimal changes, covering the way Step-up licenses work for on-premises software and Online Services in the traditional Volume Licensing agreements. Help yourself to this updated document here: https://bit.ly/41QlVhW.
Copilot in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Microsoft announce that Copilot is now available in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center for administrators to ask natural language questions as they tackle unfamiliar tasks. As long as an organisation has purchased 1 licence of Microsoft 365 Copilot, anyone with access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center can use Copilot in this way.
Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/4ie2d73.
Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents
There are updated (March 2025) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with lines added for Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting and XDR.
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/4kyNmWi), one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/4hDoMRj), and still more for specialist US Government customers – one for GCC (https://bit.ly/4bYkXoy), one for GCC High (https://bit.ly/41ApWqX) and the final one for DoD (https://bit.ly/4hF1CKf).
Power Platform Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (March 2025) Power Platform Licensing Guide with a new Managed Environments section on page 30 making it clear which licences and/or Pay-As-You-Go meters give rights to the premium features included in Managed Environments.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4kYlWcv.
Retirement of Skype
Microsoft announce that the Skype client will only be available until 5 May, 2025 with, of course, the focus turning to the free flavour of Microsoft Teams.
You can find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/420GOae, with information on how to move to Teams, export your Skype data if you don’t want to move to Teams, and what to do if you’ve still got Skype credit.
Software reimaging rights licensing guidance
There’s an updated (February 2025) software reimaging rights licensing guidance document from Microsoft. There aren’t major changes – just a few version updates and references to VLSC changed to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Grab this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4bXLXVe.
Windows 365 Disaster Recovery Plus
Microsoft announce that Windows 365 Disaster Recovery Plus is currently in preview and will be available in Spring 2025. Like the existing Windows 365 Cross Region Disaster Recovery capability it will be an Add-on licence for Windows 365 Enterprise. So, what’s the difference between these two options? Well, it’s all about how quickly your systems are back up and running and the maximum amount of data loss that’s acceptable. Windows 365 Disaster Recovery Plus improves on these metrics and you can find a useful table comparing the two licences on the announcement page here: https://bit.ly/4ie1pix.
Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (March 2025) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with just a few minor changes. You can find these documented in the Change Log on page 60 with perhaps the most significant being the removal of Fraud Protection.
Find out more about that on our blog here: https://bit.ly/4hrYRMn, and download the updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4hlwoYG.
Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection
Microsoft announce that as of 3 February, 2025, Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection is no longer available for purchase, and that support will end on 3 February, 2026. Existing customers are directed to the announcement article for next steps to take: https://bit.ly/3FpevdX.
Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites licensing guidance
There’s an updated (February 2025) Core CAL And Enterprise CAL Suites licensing guidance document from Microsoft.
There aren’t many changes from the previous (November 2020) version because, to be honest, not much has changed in the CAL Suites world. However, note that a couple of errors have been introduced into the table on page 3.
Find this document here: https://bit.ly/3FgONIK.