Monthly Microsoft License Update May 2024
Welcome to the May 2024 instalment of the Microsoft Product Terms Update from the Version 1 Microsoft License Consulting Team. Each month, Microsoft releases license changes on their product terms — this month sees a variety of updates to both product terms and supporting license briefs. Learn more about these changes in this blog or by watching this short YouTube video below.
Availability and Pre-requisite updates
- Microsoft added Copilots for Sales and Service under the Education agreements, which are the Dynamics 365 Copilots, so these are now available for Education customers.
- New product titles, Viva Pulse and Entra Governance Frontline Worker have been added to EA/EAS and MCA availability tables and License Prerequisites table.
- Expanded License Prerequisites for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to include all Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscription suites, including Frontline workers, with no minimum threshold.
Azure Communications Services — This service provides APIs and tools for developers to integrate voice chat and other communication features into applications, whether hosted on Azure or other platforms. Since May 1st, Microsoft has included Azure Communications Services within the Core Online Services table in its Privacy and Security terms. As a result of this update, these services benefit from the additional security and data residency guarantees provided by Microsoft.
Viva Pulse — Viva Pulse is part of Microsoft’s Employee Experience Platform (EXP) and enables managers to send poll requests or pulses to their team members and review aggregated results. In this month’s product terms, Microsoft has added Viva Pulse to their EU Data Boundary Services table. As a quick reminder, EU Data Boundary Services refer to a set of services and tools provided by Microsoft to ensure that customer data is stored, processed, and managed within the European Union (EU).
Azure AI Studio — This is an all-inclusive platform designed for creating, assessing, and deploying generative AI solutions and custom copilots. Included in this month’s updates are the inclusion of terms relating to Integration Services & Model Catalogue/Registry.
Azure Databricks — This is a 3rd party solution built on Databricks software that offers analytics, orchestration, and collaboration tools for developing and running machine learning applications. A minor term has been added whereby Microsoft state that any third-party models that Microsoft makes available in Azure Databricks are deemed non-Microsoft products.
Azure Hardware Terms — In this update, Microsoft added use rights for Azure Operator Nexus to the Azure Hardware section including a variety of definitions, near edge terms, warranties, and various other terms/conditions.
Microsoft Power Platform — Microsoft added Power Automate Process and Power Automate Hosted Process to Availability Tables. They removed Power Automate Hosted RPA Process add-on from Availability and Prerequisite Tables and updated Microsoft Power BI to remove data use and access for abuse monitoring.
New to the Product Terms
- Power Automate Process & Power Automate Hosted Process licenses are bot licenses in automation scenarios. Power Automate Process Licenses Unattended Robotic Process Automation for a single process/automation, and Power Automate Hosted Process licenses unattended automation for Power Automate Premium licensees (Power Automate Premium only includes an attended bot). I would recommend reading the current Power Platform Licensing Guide (May 24) for further information.
- Microsoft removed the Power BI Service Specific terms ‘Data Use and Access for Abuse Monitoring. It stated ‘As part of providing Power BI capabilities powered by the Azure OpenAI service, Microsoft will process and store Inputs and Output Content, solely for debugging and to monitor for and prevent abusive or harmful uses or outputs of the service. Authorized Microsoft employees may review such data that has triggered our automated systems to investigate and verify potential abuse.’ Has Microsoft ceased to enforce this term and why, or will it be replaced by another similar term in time?
GitHub Offerings — Microsoft removed GitHub AE GHEM (User SL) and GitHub Insights (User SL) from EAEAS availability tables. Both user services are no longer available to renew for EA/EAS customers.
As Microsoft license experts, we can help you demystify these and any other product changes and clarify what this could mean for your license position. If you have any questions relating to this or any other Microsoft licensing matter, please go to our website or contact us.
About the Author:
Karl is a Principal Licensing Consultant at Version 1, providing global Microsoft license expertise to organisations and ensuring customers get the best value from their Microsoft assets.
