News


Microsoft's New Commerce Experience Puts Limits on Customers, and Financial Burdens on Partners

Microsoft's New Commerce Experience (NCE) subscription model offers less flexibility for commercial customers by steering them toward annual commitments, but it's maybe even worse for Microsoft's Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) partners.

Microsoft Offers Prep Tips for Viva Engage August Rollout

Microsoft Viva Engage will start appearing for Microsoft Teams subscribers from "the end of August to the end of September," Microsoft announced on Wednesday.

Microsoft Adds Improvements to Certificate-Based Authentication Preview

Microsoft on Wednesday announced improvements to its Azure Active Directory Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA) preview, which promises to provide an alternative to federated-based authentication methods.

Microsoft's On-Premises Unified Update Platform To Control All Windows Updates in 2023

Microsoft announced last week that a private preview of its Unified Update Platform (UUP) for on-premises environments is available for testing by commercial organizations.

Office 2016 and Office 2019 To Lose Microsoft 365 Connections Next Year

Microsoft on Monday reminded organizations using the Office 2016 and Office 2019 productivity suites that those products will lose connections to Microsoft 365 apps and services, starting in Oct. 2023.

Microsoft Ending the Windows Information Protection Service

Microsoft on Thursday announced the gradual end of its Windows Information Protection (WIP) service, which is designed to keep users of Microsoft 365 apps from inadvertently disclosing organizational information.

Microsoft Access Fixes Coming Soon To Remedy Patch Tuesday Update Troubles

Microsoft this week indicated that fixes for Microsoft Access problems, which were caused by a botched July 12 "patch Tuesday" security patch release, will be arriving soon.

Man and Arrows

Microsoft Once Again Blocks Malicious Macros in Office

Microsoft this week said they are once again reverting back to blocking Visual Basic Application (VBA) macros in Office.

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Microsoft Commercially Releases Azure Active Directory Cross Tenant Access Setting

Microsoft on Thursday announced the "general availability" commercial release of its cross-tenant access settings for external collaborations feature, which is part of its Azure Active Directory External Identities service offering.

Microsoft Teams Goes Down for 6 Hours

Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps went down for some users on Wednesday night, lasting maybe six hours.

Microsoft Touts HyperClear Protection Against RETbleed and Other New Side-Channel Attacks

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that its HyperClear technology used with its Hyper-V hypervisor offers protections against new speculative execution side-channel attack methods that were disclosed last week by AMD and Intel.

Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure Now Available

Microsoft and database maker Oracle announced on Wednesday that their joint Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure is now generally available.

Decentralized Identifiers Finalized as W3C Recommendation

The nonprofit World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on Tuesday announced that its collaborative work on Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) is now a W3C Recommendation, which is at version 1.0.

Microsoft Inspire Event Showcases Collaboration Enhancements

Microsoft on Tuesday touted various collaboration product improvements as part of its Microsoft Inspire event for partners that's ongoing this week.

Microsoft Unveils AI Powered Contact Center Powered by Its Nuance Tech

During the opening day of its Inspire 2022 virtual partner conference on Tuesday, Microsoft revealed its latest intelligent contact center platform

Windows Release Cycle Reportedly Shifting to Once Every 3 Years

Microsoft is planning to release major new Windows client operating system versions every three years, instead of once per year, according to a report.

Thousands of Orgs Hit by Massive AiTM Phishing Campaign

Microsoft disclosed details this week of a large-scale phishing campaign that has targeted more than 10,000 organizations since September 2021.

Microsoft Adds DNS over TLS to Windows 11 Test Release

Microsoft on Wednesday announced features in Windows 11, build 25158, for its Windows Insider Program testers that includes a new Domain Name System (DNS) over Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption option.

Microsoft Defender for Business Adds Server Protections Preview

Microsoft Defender for Business now has the ability to protect servers, which is at the preview stage, according to a Wednesday Microsoft announcement.

Microsoft 365 Apps To Lose Support on Windows 8.1 Next Year

Microsoft this week warned that organizations using Microsoft 365 Apps on some of its older Windows operating systems need to upgrade those OSes to a newer version soon or risk losing patch support.

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