Office LTSC 2024 and Office 2024

Microsoft announce that Office LTSC 2024 (Standard and Professional Plus) and Office 2024 (Home and Home & Business) editions are available from 1 October 2024.

The LTSC flavours are accompanied by their favourite friends, Visio LTSC 2024 and Project 2024, and you can find that announcement here: https://bit.ly/480Ym91, while the consumer editions announcement is here: https://bit.ly/40esZpv.

Clipchamp licensing options

Clipchamp is a tool to help users to create professional-looking videos, and Microsoft announced in November 2023 that it’s now available to users with Microsoft 365 E3/E5 or Microsoft 365 Business Standard/Premium licences. In addition, there’s a new Premium Add-on licence for these users to get access to some additional features such as premium stock content. This licence will cost $7 per user per month after June 30, 2024 but there’s some introductory pricing at $5 per user per month until then. For users not eligible for included Clipchamp rights there’s a new Standard standalone licence at $3 per user per month, or a Premium standalone licence currently costing $7 which rises to $10 per user per month in July 2024.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3Om2DeC.

Teams Essentials and Teams Phone bundle offers

Microsoft announce promotional pricing for Teams Essentials and Teams Phone bundles for customers in the US, Canada, and the UK. Organisations can choose Teams Essentials with just Teams Phone Standard, or with a Domestic or International Calling Plan, or PAYG calling. Equally, customers could choose to add these Teams Phone options on to their existing Teams Essentials licences at a promotional price. Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3QidSXf, and details of the promotional offers here: https://bit.ly/3rKyDjZ.

SQL Server 2022 is generally available

Microsoft announce that SQL Server 2022 is generally available. Volume Licensing customers can download it immediately, and customers purchasing via CSP, OEM, and SPLA will be able to begin purchasing SQL Server 2022 in January 2023. This announcement article (http://bit.ly/3GmU8ww) gives lots of detail on the new features, as well as introducing a new PAYG purchasing model for SQL Server. The new licensing model is enabled by Azure Arc, and allows customers using either Standard or Enterprise edition to pay only when they use SQL Server.

Find out more about how it all works in this article: http://bit.ly/3Arq2UP.

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.