There’s a brand new (January 2025) Windows Server 2025 Licensing Guide. It’s very much based on its Windows Server 2022 predecessor with updates such as the removal of Nano Server and the addition of the Pay-As-You-Go licensing option.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4jnwlha.
There’s an updated (January 2025) Viva feature comparison table which removes Viva Goals ahead of its retirement – see our blog: https://bit.ly/4gPf0fn for details, and get this updated document here: https://bit.ly/3PniYQn.
There’s an updated (January 2025) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with just a couple of changes to the included capacity tables on pages 40 and 41. Firstly you’ll see the orientation has changed which makes them easier to read, and then a couple of missing products are added to the first table – the Contact Center SKUs and Sales/Customer Service Premium.
Find this updated Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/3ZYoRbz.
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 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.
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.
Reserved Instances are a splendid way of saving money on the compute charges for an Azure virtual machine. If you’re thinking of trying them for the first time, this Microsoft article is a useful read detailing the five key things you need to think about: https://bit.ly/4gT8t3a.
Microsoft announce that Viva Goals will be retired on 31 December 2025 with no new feature development from 5 December 2024. Customers with existing licences may continue using Viva Goals until their licences expire or until 31 December 2025, whichever comes first.
You can find information about the retirement here: https://bit.ly/40ufuBL, including the reason for the retirement – there hasn’t been enough adoption to justify Microsoft’s further investment in the product.
There’s an updated (December 2024) Power Platform Licensing Guide with a couple of quite important changes. Firstly, it’s updated for the new Pay-As-You-Go option for Copilot Studio (see our blog: https://bit.ly/409uPYs) and secondly, the word “Agents” replaces “Copilot” as the thing that you create in Copilot Studio.
Find this updated Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/41a40nU.
There’s an updated (December 2024) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with just a couple of minor edits. Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/49lPbQY.