Microsoft Newsletter January Edition

Microsoft updates you should know about:

• 15% promotion of Microsoft 365 E5 from 1st January 2025
• 5%-6% price decrease of the 1st February
• Price increase on 1st April for Power BI and Teams Phone
• 5% price increase for CSP customers, purchasing on an annual commitment, with monthly billing from 1st April
• Monthly billing option now available for Microsoft 365 Copilot

Azure Local

Microsoft introduced Azure Local for customers to run Azure services on their own infrastructure. It’s enabled by Azure Arc and provides cloud-connected capabilities at a customer’s distributed locations. 

Windows 365 Frontline Shared Mode

Microsoft announce that there’s a new Shared Mode for Windows 365 Frontline which is now in public preview. The original mode, now called Dedicated Mode, is aimed at users with staggered working hours. It allows you to provision personalised Cloud PCs for up to three users for each Windows 365 Frontline licence as long as those Cloud PCs are used non-concurrently. The new mode is for when you want to provision a single Cloud PC which lots of people need to use for short periods on an ad hoc basis, perhaps for a specific task. 

SQL databases in Microsoft Fabric

There’s a new member of the Fabric workload family – SQL databases.

You can use SQL database in Fabric for free until 1 January, 2025 when compute and data storage charges begin, with backup billing starting on 1 February, 2025. 

SQL Server 2025

SQL Server 2025 is now in private preview with general availability sometime in 2025. No word yet on whether there will be changes to the licensing.