Tag Archives: General Availability

GA of Exchange Server SE and Skype for Business Server SE editions

Microsoft announce the general availability of the Subscription Editions of Exchange Server and Skype for Business Server, which are the successors to the 2019 editions From a licensing perspective they follow the same rules as for SharePoint Server SE: you need active SA to use the product – or buy the subscription licences – and if the SA lapses, then you retain rights to the 2019 version of the product.

Find the Exchange Server announcement here: https://bit.ly/4noQ0PI, and the Skype for Business Server one here: http://bit.ly/44cZqGC.

Hotpatching for Windows Server

Microsoft announce that hotpatching for Windows Server 2025 will be generally available as a subscription service on 1 July, 2025, costing $1.50 per CPU core per month. This new way of installing updates that doesn’t require a reboot after installation has been available for the Azure Edition of Windows Server Datacenter, but is now available to servers running outside of Azure, as long as they’re connected to Azure Arc.

Find the (excellent) announcement article here: https://bit.ly/4k0GGPJ.

GA of Hotpatch for Windows client

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.

Copilot in Azure

Microsoft announce that Copilot in Azure is generally available, accessed from the Azure Management Portal and designed to help you answer questions, complete tasks, and discover and utilise Azure services. It was free in preview, and continues to be free now, although a customer’s excessive use of a Microsoft generative AI service may result in temporary throttling of their access to the service.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4lEXfCh.

GA of Microsoft Places

Microsoft announce that Microsoft Places is now generally available. This new technology is based on Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot and is designed to help users have a better experience when they’re working from their office – by making it easy to coordinate in-person gatherings or to sync up spontaneously with colleagues also working from the office on a particular day. From a licensing perspective there are three tiers of features: core, enhanced, and additional. If you’ve got Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium, Office 365 F3/E1/E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 F3/E3/E5 licence then you have access to the core features, although you’ll also need a Teams licence if it’s not included in your plan. The enhanced features are available through a Teams Premium Add-on licence, and the additional features need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence too.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4eIoUgX with lots of visionary information as to what Places might do for you, and the more pragmatic Learn documentation here: https://bit.ly/4i3m8ph.

SQL Server 2025

Microsoft announce that SQL Server 2025 is now in private preview with general availability sometime in 2025. No word yet on whether there will be changes to the licensing.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3Zi81oX.

Windows Server and System Center 2025

Windows Server and System Center 2025 were made generally available by Microsoft on November 1, 2024. This is a useful article (https://bit.ly/3CaBgAO) which gives more information on the new features of Windows Server 2025 including the fact that hotpatching (installing security updates without a reboot) will be available as a monthly subscription for Windows Server 2025 Standard and Datacenter editions.

Find out more about the public preview of Windows Server Hotpatch here: https://bit.ly/40AX1Eb.

System Center 2025

Microsoft announce that System Center 2025 is generally available from 1 November, 2024. The licensing is exactly the same as for System Center 2022, but licences are 10% more expensive – you can find the licensing summarised on a handy 2-page datasheet here: https://bit.ly/40xXqar.

The announcement article is here: https://bit.ly/4fc1TE3, and that’s where you’ll also find a list of some of the new features.

Windows Server 2025

Microsoft announce that Windows Server 2025 is generally available from 1 November, 2024. From a what’s-the-same perspective, there are still Standard and Datacenter editions which differ by a couple of technical features but mainly by their virtualisation licensing rights, and CALs are still needed for users or devices. From a what’s-new perspective, there’s now a PAYG licensing option through Azure Arc, and prices are increased by 10%.

Find the (low-key) announcement here: https://bit.ly/40DqRHY, and early information on the PAYG option here: https://bit.ly/3YxtfgP.

Microsoft Entra Suite

Microsoft announce that the Microsoft Entra Suite is generally available. This solution brings together identity and network access so that you can secure employee access to any cloud or on-premises application or resource from any location whilst all the time enforcing least privileged access. Microsoft Entra Suite costs $12 per user per month and can be assigned to any user already licensed with Entra ID Plan 1 – or any plan (like Microsoft 365 E3) that includes it. There’s also an Add-on available for users already licensed with Entra ID Plan 2.

Find the announcement here (with a list of the suite components): https://bit.ly/4fa2iY1, pricing information here: https://bit.ly/46dHcUU, and the Product Terms information here: https://bit.ly/2OFt7vB.