Microsoft Monthly Newsletter – April 2024

In this Issue:

1. Global Licensing Changes
2. Copilot for Security
3. Microsoft Intune Suite Components
4. Azure Standard Support Offer Extension.

Global Licensing Changes to M365, O365 and Teams

Microsoft announced Global licensing changes to M365, O365 and Teams following on from the previous years changes in European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. These changes included offering Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites that do not include Teams and, separately, stand-alone Teams offerings in the EEA and Switzerland area.

On April 1st, 2024 Microsoft announced that it is extending this approach worldwide. These changes are intended to realign Microsoft’s global subscription structure following changes made in Europe.

Effective April 1st 2024, Microsoft introduced:

• A new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in regions outside the EEA and Switzerland that do not include Teams.
• New standalone Enterprise Teams offerings for customers in those regions.
• The end of sale of net-new subscriptions to existing Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise SKUs with Teams (E1/E3/E5) across all channels: Volume Licensing (EA & MPSA), CSP, and Web Direct. Non-Enterprise licenses are not affected.

What this means

Starting April 1, 2024:

• All net-new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Enterprise purchases outside the EEA and Switzerland need to purchase the new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 offers that do not include Teams. If the customer desires to have Teams too, they will need to purchase the separate Enterprise Teams offer.
• All new purchases of Business & Frontline licenses purchases outside the EEA and Switzerland can now choose between the existing Microsoft 365 Business and Frontline suites with Teams included or they may select new “no Teams” versions of those suites.
• Existing Enterprise and SMB customers in regions outside the EEA and Switzerland using Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suites that have already subscribed can continue renew, add seats, and step-up for the foreseeable future. They may also switch to the new lineup of suites without Teams on contract anniversary or renewal.

If you would like more detail around these changes and how they affect you, please reach out to your aligned Microsoft Licensing Specialist.

Copilot for Security

Microsoft announce that Copilot for Security will be generally available on April 1st, 2024. Customers will be able to choose a standalone Copilot experience or an embedded one (find a good diagram on the announcement page here) and both will be billed on a consumption model. It’s all going to work via a new Security Compute Unit (SCU) which costs $4/hour billed, as usual, against an existing or new Azure Subscription.

Microsoft Intune Suite components

Microsoft add three more components of the Intune Suite to the February and March 2024 Product Terms site. They’re also available as Add-ons to Intune Plan 1 as a User Subscription Licence: Advanced Analytics ($5/month), Enterprise Application Management ($2/per month) and Microsoft Cloud PKI ($2/month). Find the announcement here.

Azure Standard Support Offer Extended

Customers buying their Azure services through an Enterprise Agreement in extended terms or via the MCA-E have long been eligible for free Azure Standard Support, and Microsoft confirm that this offer will be extended to June 30, 2024, with both new and renewing customers eligible for support for a period of 6 months.

If you are consuming Azure via an expired Enterprise Agreement in extended terms, please reach out to your aligned Microsoft Licensing Specialist to find out how Ultima can help migrate you to CSP, which will benefit you commercially whilst providing you with FOC 24×7 support.

Stay tuned for more updates from Microsoft next month. For further information or inquiries, feel free to contact us.