[m365weekly] #43

☁️What’s on my mind

The other day my colleague asked: “Remember the days when Microsoft released a new Windows Server version? IT providers would learn all the secrets of the new product and then reap the benefits for the next 4 years when Microsoft released the new version. Rinse and repeat.”

But now? New features are coming into production (“general availability” in Microsoft’s terms) on a daily/weekly basis. Not only IT companies but users, too need to constantly be aware of the changes. That is a new reality.

Have a great week.
Matic Z.

FEATURED STORY: MICROSOFT 365 price changes in March 2022

It’s been 11 years since the last major price changes Microsoft 365 ecosystem (then Office 365). In this time Microsoft added literally thousands of new features and new services while the price stayed the same. So I guess the price increase is somewhat logical.

But on the other hand, Google Workspace is a competitor that could benefit from this price increase. Will there be migrations from Microsoft to Google. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

To be honest, even with the price increase Microsoft is offering much much more than Google.

New pricing for Microsoft 365. An official announcement on Microsoft Blog.

Microsoft to Increase Prices for Office 365 and Microsoft 365 in March 2022. Some bundles will see a 20% increase in price.

Microsoft announces Price Increase for Microsoft and Office 365. A few most important bundles with new prices. So you can get a feeling of what’s going to happen in March 2022.

💻 Productivity & Modern Workplace

What’s Coming to OneNote. There are actually two different OneNote apps. One you can get when you install Office desktop apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, …), the other comes with Windows 10 and has modern look. Now Microsoft announced they will do the drastic change to OneNote.

Activity Overload – Manage the Noise in Teams. If you’re working in a large corporation or you’re a member of a lot of teams, your Teams app may generate a lot of notifications, sounds, etc. Learn how to approach this problem and kill the noise. Link to Youtube video.

Microsoft adding unlimited Microsoft Teams Meeting PSTN dial-in to enterprise, business, frontline, and government licences. Dial-in PSTN calls will be included in Microsoft 365 bundles. For free, of course. But the prices of those bundles will increase.

Do More with Teams Meeting Recordings in Microsoft 365. The transition from old Teams which saved videos in separate storage to the new storage method which saves in OneDrive and SharePoint is nearly complete. Let’s look at what this means for users.

Teams Consumer Gets a New Boss Just in Time to Deliver Windows 11 Client. There’s been some misinformation about the overhaul of Teams client with the release of Windows 11. What’s true and what not? Read on.

Announcing Universal Print integration with OneDrive. Remember the hype from years ago when everybody thought we will be paperless in a few years’ time. Probably we are printing less and we are printing smarter, but businesses still need printers. And managing the fleet of printers in the covid times has become an increasingly hard task. Universal Print is print management in the cloud. Now integrated with OneDrive.

Microsoft Teams Spam Call Notifications. Spam calls are killing productivity. The phone system in Microsoft 365 will soon recognize those calls and display a message on display.

☁️Sysadmin Stuff

Create Windows 11 Filter Rule In Intune. As Windows 11 is coming soon we need to prepare and get used to managing devices with Windows 11 properly.

Exchange Online to Introduce Legacy SMTP Endpoint in 2022. In 2022 Microsoft will start disabling TLS 1.0 and 1.1 connections to Exchange Online. What to do when you have old software or hardware that needs TLS 1.0/1.1 to connect to Outlook Online?

Exchange Online to Enable Plus Addressing Everywhere in January 2022. Plus addressing is a useful feature in Exchange Online. In January 2022 it will be enabled everywhere. And that may cause problems in some cases, depending on how your Exchange Online is configured.

Best Practices: Office 365 Tools to Eliminate Email Security Misconfigurations. Even best practices are not fixed in time and space. Microsoft offers some tools to check your configurations against best practices.

☁️Security & Data Governance

How to Deploy Zero Trust Identity Security. In last year Microsft is pushing Zero Trust principles as they were something they discovered just recently. Well, they didn’t. With help of Petri.com authors, you can discover what those principles are and how to implement them to secure identities in Microsoft 365.

Securing your Windows 365 Cloud PCs. Security is a process, not a project. With Windows 365 we just added another piece in the whole mix of the security puzzle. How to approach Windows 365 security?

Trend-spotting email techniques: How modern phishing emails hide in plain sight. Security professional analyzes a few of most prevalent phishing scams and explains how they work. Interesting read.

☁️Noteworthy (long)reads

Exchange Vulnerabilities Still Being Exploited and Blackhat USA 2021 highlights what’s still to come. What should you do? It’s not to expect that every single still exposed Exchange server is going to be patched soon. There are some tools you can use to check the health of your Exchange server and act accordingly. You have better chances to survive if you migrate email to the cloud.

The Digital Storytelling Handbook. How to tell stories that delight your audience and make an impact on your brand.

💻 Upcoming Webinars

September 1 – 2 2021, TEC – The Experts Conference. Free.

☁️On a Less Serious Note


☁️ Last but not least …

Here are a few things you can do if you enjoyed reading this newsletter: