Tag Archives: Government

Microsoft 365 A7 and Microsoft 365 G7

Microsoft 365 A7 for Education and Microsoft 365 G7 for Government Community Cloud (GCC) both launched on 1 October 2026.

The two new offerings are positioned as the Education and US Government versions of Microsoft 365 E7, overtaking Microsoft 365 A5 and Microsoft 365 G5 as the top-tier licences available.

For Education customers, Microsoft 365 A7 comes in flavours for faculty and students, with a Student Use Benefit option also available.

While not all features of Microsoft 365 G7 are available immediately for GCC customers, additional capabilities are planned to arrive in stages over the coming months. The release coincided with the general availability of Agent 365 for GCC, which launched on the same day.

You’ll find Microsoft 365 A7 details in the Product Terms change summary for October here: https://bit.ly/3Tuy7Fe and a feature breakdown on the updated Subscription License Suites website here: https://bit.ly/4cqn6v9. You can read the announcement article for Microsoft 365 G7 here: https://bit.ly/4yK6Ptw and view further information on the Public Sector Blog: https://bit.ly/4Afay3v.

Azure Cost Management available for Azure Government customers

Microsoft announce that Azure Cost Management capabilities are now available for Azure Government customers buying through azure.com.

Find out more about Azure for government (US federal agencies, state and local governments) here: http://bit.ly/3dk9nI8, and the Azure Cost Management announcement here: http://bit.ly/3jWjKTK.

Volume Licensing for Government brochure

If you want an overview of the Volume Licensing agreements available for government customers then you may find this new overview brochure useful.

It covers the agreements available for all sizes of government customers and is up-to-date with changes such as the retirement of the Open License Program announced recently.

Find this brochure here: https://bit.ly/3p5mlN0.

Further changes to the Open License Program

Back in October 2020 Microsoft announced that commercial customers wouldn’t be able to buy through the Open License Program after 31 December, 2021 (http://bit.ly/393LlhZ). A recent article confirms that this will also apply to government, education and nonprofit customers in the same timeframe.

These customers will be able to buy perpetual licences for the traditional on-premises products in CSP in July 2021, and there will be additional Open Value options from March 2021 for nonprofit and education customers to buy licences with SA or to renew SA.

Find the article here: http://bit.ly/39693dH, where it might be worth perusing the FAQs at the bottom of the page.

Azure Cost Management

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Azure Cost Management for customers buying through Azure.com and Azure Government customers.

You can find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2LdDQLM with details of new features (a downloadable Azure usage CSV file) and the generally available features (cost analysis, budgets and exports).

There’s also information on what’s not currently supported: Marketplace purchases, data from earlier than September 2018, and Reserved Instances.

Government Licensing Guides

We’ve added a new section to our Licensing Guides emporium for documents to do with the Government licensing programs.

Find them in the Volume Licensing Programs section at: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.