Microsoft announce Office 2019, likely to be available in the second half of 2018. This release will include updated applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) and servers (Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business Server).
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2y3MZPb.
There’s a brand new SQL Server 2017 Licensing Datasheet to support general availability of this product on 2nd October 2017. There aren’t changes to the fundamental licensing but this datasheet is a nice summary including useful information such as the differences in SA benefits between Standard and Enterprise editions.
Find it in the Application Servers section here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft announce that SQL Server 2017 will be generally available on 2nd October 2017. The blog post announcement is here: http://bit.ly/2xDEo4E and gives you some detail on the (actually quite exciting) new features that will be part of SQL Server 2017.
However, if you’re more interested in a summary, here are the top three things to know from a licensing perspective:
Microsoft announce Microsoft 365 Education. This will be available from 1st October 2017 and will include Windows 10, Office 365, EMS and Minecraft: Education Edition. As with its commercial counterpart, it will licensed via a single User Subscription Licence and there will be two different flavours: Microsoft 365 Education A3 and A5. Find the announcement on the Microsoft Education blog here: http://bit.ly/2wPJ9sZ, with a couple of relevant videos.
Office 365 for Education remains a free product and is renamed to Office 365 A1 and there’s a useful comparison of the features and functionality included in this free product and the new Microsoft 365 Education A3/A5. Find it towards the bottom of this page: http://bit.ly/2wh9g7N by clicking on the “Compare Microsoft 365 Education Plans” link.
Microsoft introduce a new edition of Windows 10 Pro – Windows 10 Pro for Workstations. It’s a high-end edition for server grade PC hardware and is designed to meet the demanding needs of mission critical and compute intensive workloads. It will be available later in the year as part of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
Find out more here: http://bit.ly/2uP53H5.
Microsoft release an Azure Stack Licensing Guide for Hosters and Service Providers which gives a good overview of how partners can provide Azure Stack services through CSP and license Windows Server workloads through SPLA. Find this guide in the Online Services section with the rest of the Microsoft Licensing Guides here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft release an Azure Stack Licensing Guide for end customers. If you want an overview of how Azure Stack is sold and how you can use existing licences to license workloads on Azure Stack then this document is worth a read.
Find it in the Online Services section with the rest of the Microsoft Licensing Guides here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft confirm that from 1 August 2017 organisations licensed with Windows 10 Enterprise E3/E5 or VDA E3/E5 User SLs will be able to install Windows 10 Enterprise Current Branch in a virtual machine running on Microsoft Azure or a shared server with a Qualified Multi Tenant Hosting Partner.
See page 42 of the August 2017 Product Terms and read more here: http://bit.ly/2wwUsli.
Microsoft update the August 2017 Product Terms and Online Services Terms with the name change of Secure Productive Enterprise to Microsoft 365 Enterprise. There are no changes to the licensing.
Microsoft confirm that from September 2017 the Windows 10 servicing branches will be updated. The Long Term Servicing Branch is renamed the Long Term Servicing Channel and both the Current Branch and Current Branch for Business are replaced with the Semi Annual Channel.
This page has more details as well as an excellent video which is well worth a watch: http://bit.ly/2vdBIKT.