Tag Archives: Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents

There are updated (May 2025) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with some small changes getting everything up to date: adding Microsoft 365 Business Premium as an eligible prerequisite for Microsoft 365 E5 Security, for example.

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/434vH29), one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/3F5GCzh), and one for Education customers (https://bit.ly/4muUpQX), and still more for specialist US customers – one for GCC (https://bit.ly/437WyJe), one for GCC High (https://bit.ly/4kgHD6C) and the final one for DoD (https://bit.ly/3YJxpTY).

And, if you’re a partner, we do have an April 2025 Excel version of these files. Drop us an email on info@licensingschool.co.uk from your work email address and we’ll send it on.

Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft 365 E5 Security

Microsoft announce that Microsoft 365 Business Premium is now an eligible prerequisite for Microsoft 365 E5 Security.

Microsoft 365 Business Premium already includes core security solutions for SMBs and the announcement article does a good job of explaining exactly where the security coverage is enhanced with this Add-on licence.

Find the relevant article here: https://bit.ly/4ivoFrS.

Copilot and Microsoft 365 Personal and Family

Microsoft announce that Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers can now use Copilot in the Microsoft 365 Apps. It’s not unlimited usage – there are 60 AI Credits available each month where asking Copilot to summarise your Word document would consume 1 credit, for example.

In addition, for a Microsoft 365 Family subscriber, it’s only the subscription owner that gets this Copilot usage.

There’s also a price increase for these consumer subscriptions at $3 per user per month but, as you’d expect, subscribers don’t see any price increases until their subscriptions renew and, at that time, they could choose to renew into new Classic plans which keep the existing price and don’t include Copilot or AI Credits.

Find the announcement with a host of useful links here: https://bit.ly/4apmCmu. Alternatively, if you’re a Licensing School subscriber join our Did You See..? training session on Wednesday 22nd January, 2025 and let us teach you all about it: https://bit.ly/3Wy2CbZ.

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat

Microsoft announce that there are enhancements to the Microsoft Copilot experience for users with a Microsoft Entra account and, because of that, there’s a name change… Welcome Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat! It’s the use of Agents in the chat experience that’s the big news – oh, and the fact that these can be paid for on a consumption basis.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3Cj84bp, and information on how the consumption works here: https://bit.ly/4auaUXB.

Alternatively, if you’re a Licensing School subscriber join our Did You See..? training session on Wednesday 22nd January, 2025 and let us teach you all about it: https://bit.ly/3Wy2CbZ.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents

There are updated (January 2025) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with some small changes: a little bit of rewording in the Microsoft Loop section, and the removal of Viva Goals ahead of its retirement (see our blog: https://bit.ly/4gPf0fn).

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/4fQnCRN), one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/4fJP8QR), and one for Education customers (https://bit.ly/42694dp), and still more for specialist US customers – one for GCC (https://bit.ly/4a9Fcig), one for GCC High (https://bit.ly/3DPtYDG) and the final one for DoD (https://bit.ly/403RX9z). And, if you’re a partner, there’s exciting news – we’ve found the Excel version of these files again! Drop us an email on info@licensingschool.co.uk from your work email address and we’ll send it on.

And don’t forget our free Glossary to get quick definitions of things like Microsoft Loop: https://bit.ly/LVGlossary.

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.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison for education

Microsoft’s plan comparison documents are fantastic for seeing which components are included in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plans. They’re often updated monthly and the eagle-eyed among you have spotted that we didn’t post a November 2024 version for Education earlier in the month. Well, we’ve found it now and it’s uploaded for your download delight here: https://bit.ly/496JV3P.

Microsoft 365 Apps Licensing Brief

There’s an updated (October 2024) Microsoft 365 Apps Licensing Brief from Microsoft. It coincides, of course, with the recent launch of Office LTSC 2024 – see our blog: https://bit.ly/3Yq4O5c, and now also includes the Flexible Virtualization Benefit.

There’s also a question added about whether you can deploy the Microsoft 365 Apps on Amazon WorkSpaces – you can.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/409v1HA.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents

There are updated (October 2024) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents. These very popular documents allow you to see which of the (many) components are contained in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plan. There are different flavours of the documents for different types of customers.

Find the one for Enterprise customers here: https://bit.ly/3BzeylI,

SMB customers here: https://bit.ly/3Bxz0Do,

Education customers here: https://bit.ly/3U7G93F,

GCC customers here: https://bit.ly/3Y1cdaP,

GCC High customers here: https://bit.ly/3YeF4tm, and

DoD customers here: https://bit.ly/3zTigpL.

Enjoy!