Tag Archives: M365

Office/Microsoft 365 EEA offerings

Late in August 2023, Microsoft announced that there would be changes to the offerings available in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to address European competition concerns – you can read that article here: https://bit.ly/3Pfx0Ty. These offerings are now live in the October 2023 Product Terms, so here’s the summary…

A customer in these regions who has not purchased Office 365 E1/E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 E3/E5 before 1 October, 2023 must now buy “EEA (no Teams)” SKUs – which, as the names suggest, don’t include Teams. If the customer does want Teams, then they need to purchase a separate Teams EEA User SL for their users. If they have purchased any of these licences before 1 October then they can add more licences and renew existing Subscriptions.

For Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium, customers in the affected regions will be able to choose the original offerings or new EEA flavours without Teams. The same goes for Microsoft 365 F1/F3 and Office 365 F3.

This site, aimed at partners, has information about pricing, and a useful FAQ document: https://bit.ly/3EDGHX4.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison document

There’s an updated (August 2023) version of the popular Microsoft 365 plan comparison document showing you the different components in all of the Enterprise and Frontline Worker plans and the Add-on licences that are available. This latest refresh is updated for the name change of Azure Active Directory to Entra ID, includes more detail on the Defender Vulnerability Management SKUs, and updates the Viva section with Viva Glint and Viva Goals.

Find this useful document here: https://bit.ly/3sdixQj.

Microsoft Clipchamp

Clipchamp is a tool to help users to create professional-looking videos, and Microsoft announce that it will be available to users with Microsoft 365 E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 Business Standard/Premium licences starting at the end of August 2023.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3YvSik1, and the product pages here https://bit.ly/443U3WL and here https://bit.ly/3Soihc5, confirming which plans will have access, and that Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers already have Clipchamp included.

Windows 11 licensing for Virtual Desktops

There’s an updated (November 2022) “Windows 11 licensing for Virtual Desktops” Licensing Brief from Microsoft with two main changes.

Firstly, there’s the inclusion of the Flexible Virtualization Benefit showing the additional options customers can now have for using Windows 11 virtual machines with an Authorized Outsourcer’s shared hardware.

Secondly, the Qualifying Operating System requirements are updated, removing the need for one when a user is licensed with a Microsoft 365 licence. Find this updated guide here: http://bit.ly/3gpVmg7.

Microsoft 365 App

Microsoft introduce the Microsoft 365 App which will replace Office.com (starting in November 2022), as well as the Office mobile app and the Office app for Windows (starting in January 2023). The “traditional” perpetual licences for Office 2021 stay branded as Office at this time.

For more information, take a look at the FAQs here: https://bit.ly/3ThafiM.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison document

There’s an October 2022 version of the popular Microsoft 365 plan comparison document showing you the different components in all of the Enterprise and Frontline Worker plans and the Add-on licences that are available. Find this useful document here: https://bit.ly/2LG4gqi.

Microsoft 365 E3 – Unattended Licensing Brief

There’s an updated (June 2022) Microsoft 365 E3 – Unattended Licensing Brief. This document helps you to understand how the Microsoft 365 E3 – Unattended licence allows a bot to run repetitive tasks in a Windows client/Office app without user intervention, with a useful FAQ section at the end.

This updated version has minor changes updating it for Windows 11, and you can find it here: https://bit.ly/3QcSijt.

Microsoft Teams Essentials

Microsoft introduce Teams Essentials, a standalone Teams offering aimed at small businesses.

It’s $4 per user per month available through CSP partners or directly from Microsoft’s website and allows unlimited group meetings for up to 30 hours with up to 300 participants.

This site is useful for seeing how Teams Essentials compares to other plans aimed at smaller businesses such as Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Standard: https://bit.ly/31LrCSX.

Find the Teams Essentials announcement here: https://bit.ly/3pF2plr, and resources for partners selling Teams solutions here: https://bit.ly/3rJOSvB.

Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise is now an EOLS

There’s a change to the status of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise when it’s purchased through an Enterprise Agreement. It’s now designated as an Enterprise Online Service which means that it doesn’t need to be purchased enterprise-wide and 500 licences can be acquired to start an Enterprise Online Services-only enrolment.

Find the relevant page of the Product Terms site here: https://bit.ly/3ABfP5K.