Monthly Microsoft License Update November 2023
Welcome to the November 2023 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.
For your convenience, we have uploaded a recording that discusses these changes in more detail.
Microsoft Defender — Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR has been added to the availability table for Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) program. This is an add-on to Microsoft Defender and is a managed extended detection and response service that helps your security operations centres (SOCs) focus and accurately respond to incidents ‘that matter.’ It provides extended detection and response for customers who use Microsoft 365 Defender services, such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, for Office 365, for Identity, for Cloud Apps and Entra ID.
System Center Server — Microsoft included changes to support the launch of System Center Server in MCA/CSP. They also removed the ‘16-cores’ per customer requirement for System Center when licensing by virtual OSE. This is comparable to what Microsoft did with Windows Server licensing. The new licensing rules now states that the software can be used on Azure or a Server to manage a Virtual OSE on a Licensed Server if the sufficient licenses are purchased. The sufficient licenses are now equal to the total number of virtual cores in the virtual OSE or the minimum of 8 core licenses per Virtual OSE, whichever is greater. This change removes the previous minimum of 16 cores per server and makes licensing in Public Cloud or in a Virtual environment less expensive.
GitHub Offerings: Updated General Service Terms and Service Specific Terms for added clarity when purchasing through Microsoft. General Service Terms is a brand-new section under GitHub Offerings and deals with License Grant and Ownership of Content & Privacy. New to Service Specific Terms are details for Enterprise Server, Cloud and Copilot e.g., the GitHub Copilot Defense of Third-Party Claims provision under which Microsoft/GitHub will indemnify its Copilot Copyright commitment. Specifically, customers must have set Duplicate Detection filtering feature available in GitHub Copilot to its ‘Block’ setting.
Universal Terms for Online Services: General updates to the Generative AI terms to add clarity and align with Microsoft’s Copilot commitments. New updates to Generative AI include Capacity Limitations, Use of Content for Training & Location of Data Processing. The Data Location Processing may be of significance if customers require a guarantee to keep AI data within its own tenant’s geographic region (clause states data may be processed outside of tenant’s geographic region). Capacity Limitations is an interesting entry where if Microsoft observes an excessive use of an AI service, it may throttle the customer’s access to the service.
Microsoft 365 Copilot to EA/EAS/SCE and MCA Availability — M365 Copilot is one of Microsoft’s many new AI offerings that promises to enhance user efficiency and productivity when using Microsoft 365 Apps such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word. In October Microsoft advised that Microsoft 365 Copilot move to general availability this November.
Key points to note are that M365 Copilot is an add on license — it’s not included with M365 and users must have a Microsoft 365 Business Standard/Business Premium/E3/E5 & Enterprise E3/E5.
Microsoft Azure — Added terms for Microsoft Fabric and Azure AI Content Safety. General updates to AI and Azure OpenAI Service terms. Azure AI Content Safety Studio is an online tool designed to handle potentially offensive, risky, or undesirable content using cutting-edge content moderation machine learning models. It provides templates and customized workflows, enabling users to choose and build their own content moderation system.
Coupled with the above, Microsoft includes some general updates to AI & Azure Open Service Terms.
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.
