REMINDER: New Definition of “External Users”
Currently, the term "External Users" refers to users that are not employees, onsite contractors or onsite agents of Customer or its Affiliates.
Effective 1st October 2024, "External Users" will be modified for products that include External Users use rights in product terms. The new definition will refer to users that are not (a) employees of Customer or its Affiliates, (b) contractors or agents that typically work for Customer or its Affiliates for more than 30 hours on average per week, or (c) contractors or agents that typically work onsite for Customer or its Affiliates on each working day.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/Update-to-external-users-2024
Updates to Microsoft Copilot to bring enterprise data protection to more organisations
Next month, Microsoft are making several updates to the free Microsoft Copilot service for users with a Microsoft Entra account to enhance data security, privacy, and compliance and simplify the user experience. For users signed in with an Entra account, Microsoft Copilot will offer enterprise data protection (EDP) and redirect users to a new simplified, ad-free user interface designed for work and education.
Windows 365 Cross Region Disaster Recovery Add-on
Microsoft announce a business continuity service for Windows 365 to protect against regional outages. When activated, the service creates temporary copies of users’ Cloud PCs in alternative geographical regions, preserving installed applications, user settings, and data. The Windows 365 Cross Region Disaster Recovery Add-On license costs $5 per user per month and is currently only available for Windows 365 Enterprise users.
Windows 365 Cross-region Disaster Recovery generally available | Windows IT Pro Blog (microsoft.com)
Exchange Server SE
Microsoft confirm that the next version of Exchange Server will be a Subscription Edition (SE) which will be available early in the third quarter of 2025. From a licensing perspective it will follow the same rules as for SharePoint Server SE: you'll need active SA to use the product - or buy the subscription licences - and if the SA lapses, then you retain rights to the 2019 version of the product.