Microsoft Newsletter- February 2020

Read below for all the latest news and updates from Microsoft this month.

Windows Defender available as standalone product

On 2^nd March 2020, Microsoft is removing the pre-requirement to have Windows Enterprise on the device. Via CSP, customers will be able to buy Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection for all their supported devices, regardless of their Windows E3 (Enterprise) ownership position. Other licenses and suites are unaffected. Learn more about Defender here.

Software Assurance Benefits Removal

Microsoft announced last year the phasing out of the Planning Services Days and Training Vouchers as SA benefits. The process will start early 2020 and run until June 2022. Please speak to your Ultima account team to learn how you are affected. Please note, Azure and other cloud products are being instantly impacted.

SQL 2019 released

SQL 2019 is now on general release. Click here for further information.

Ultima can assist customers to perform a comprehensive assessment of SQL Server 2019 to determine if it's a good fit for their organisation.

The assessment covers:

• Data Lake and Data Virtualization advancements
• Business Intelligence relationship with Power BI
• Security improvements for highly critical data
• Technical and packaging changes such as SQL Server for Linux

For more information on this, please contact your Account Manager.

Dynamics365 Updates

Microsoft released new products for Dynamics Biz Apps and Power Platform Products on 1^st February 2020. The updated offers include HR, IoT Intelligence for Supply Chain Management, eCommerce and Customer Insights. More detail can be found here or contact your Ultima account team.

Core Customer Data moving to UK Datacentres

Microsoft are offering free migrations to customers to move their data in O365 to UK Datacentres until July 2022. Customers need to opt in before 1st July 2020. Meet your data residency requirements and maintain resiliency with Office 365. Benefit from in-geo data residency for core customer data, business continuity, and disaster recovery. Office 365 has a datacentre geo in the United Kingdom and Microsoft offer a migration service that now includes Microsoft Teams chat service data. Let us know if you’d like to progress or click here for more detail.

New Microsoft T&C’s

For new agreements and renewals. To be reviewed.

Upcoming Webinars and Events

Make sure you check out the latest webinars and events running: Click Here.
Our previous webinar recordings are available here.