[m365weekly] #53

☁️What’s on my mind

In the past few days, as I followed the developments around the renaming of Facebook to Meta and the announcements of what kind of world Zuck envisions, I felt quite sick about it. Honestly.
And a few days later, I get a blow from Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who sees the world of the future in pretty much the same way. Now I hear that Nike is quietly preparing to go meta, too (source).
The metaverse, a world in which I will be represented at virtual meetings by some animated character because I don’t feel like turning on the camera. We may as well live in a Simpsons universe.
The movie Surrogates (2009), starring Bruce Willis, comes to mind. OK, maybe I’m just getting old and don’t see all the benefits of the metaverse vision.

I am really interested in your opinion. Where do you see this “meta” trend going? Drop me an email.

Have a great week.
Matic Z.

FEATURED STORY: MICROSOFT IGNITE 2021

Metaverse, remote work, hybrid work, collaboration, artificial intelligence, productivity – buzz words ringing in our ears. MS Ignite didn’t disappoint. As always at conferences of this kind, Microsoft presented a number of new features and new apps that have not yet been launched, but will get into production environment in the coming months.
You can read summaries and highlights of MS Ignite announcements on the links below.

Satya Nadella’s Microsoft Ignite Keynote: Business Trends & The Metaverse.

What’s new and coming to files experiences in Microsoft 365 at Microsoft Ignite.

Microsoft Ignite Fall 2021: Innovations coming to Microsoft Teams.

Loop, Mesh, Connect IQ, and Lots of Teams Dominate Office at Microsoft Ignite 2021.

💻 Productivity & Modern Workplace

Microsoft Visio is Rolling Out to Microsoft 365 Commercial Subscribers Worldwide. Yes, you’ve read right. A light version of Visio. Something that a lot of users wanted but were not prepared to pay extra. Read on for more detailes.

How to compare two versions of the document in SharePoint. Especially in cases where several people are working on the same document, it is actually a necessity to be able to compare different versions. Thanks to the change history available in SharePoint, this is a fairly easy job. See how.

What’s Microsoft Loop? One of the things that got a lot of attention at Ignite 2021 was Microsoft’s new Loop service. Is it a revolutionary service that will change the face of the earth? What do you think?

What’s New in Microsoft Teams – October 2021. The new Whiteboard and improved Presenter mode are just two of the new features. But Microsoft has released many more.

Hidden Gems in Microsoft 365 E3 Licensing. Microsoft 365 E3 is certainly not cheap. But if you work for a large corporation, it’s possible that your employer has assigned this bundle to you. What many people don’t realise is that this package also includes services that few people know about.

How to Integrate Microsoft To-Do With OneNote. Want to manage your tasks much more efficiently? Connect OneNote and To-Do lists. Follow this link for instructions on how to do it.

How to protect Word document with a password. Yes, it’s true, it’s quite basic. But it’s amazing how few users know that Office documents can be password protected.


☁️Sysadmin Stuff

How to Use an Exchange Transport Rule to Copy Messages. Exchange Online Transport Rules are a very powerful tool when it comes to routing emails within an organisation. Let’s take a look at an example of how to use a transport rule to BCC user’s sent emails to the company’s management for a review.

Connect to Microsoft 365 using PowerShell. To manage your Microsoft 365 environment with PowerShell scripts, you must first connect to the M365 cloud.

Introducing Microsoft Defender for Business: you heard that right… it’s *included* with Business Premium. Yes, it is true. In March 2022, the vast majority of Microsoft 365 services will get a price increase. But on the other hand Microsoft is already adding new services to many of the bundles that add significantly to the value of the bundles themselves. If we look at the price increases from that point of view, they won’t hurt us that much. Microsoft Defender for Business may prove to be the greatest addition to the Business Premium plan.

Export Office 365 Calendar Permissions Report using PowerShell. PowerShell script discussed in this article helps you to get calendar permissions for all the Office 365 mailboxes. Also, It exports 6 different mailbox permission reports to CSV file.


☁️Security & Data Governance

Protect your business from password sprays with Microsoft DART recommendations. Password spraying is a smarter version of brute force attack. The aim is to bypass the conventional methods that usually stop brute force attacks by locking accounts after a certain number of attempts. Microsoft DART team has a few recommendations on how to dodge those kinds of attacks.

Evolving Zero Trust—Lessons learned and emerging trends. While it may seem as if Microsoft was the first to invent Zero Trust, the truth is that the Zero Trust model has been around for quite a few years. And because it’s effective, Microsoft is pushing it hard lately.

Eliminating passwords. Why the hell would anyone want to abolish passwords? Okay, you forget that we humans are pretty predictable animals. We use the same password in several places. And that’s a very dangerous thing to do, so it’s better to have no passwords than to have bad passwords. How? Read it in the article.


☁️Noteworthy (long)reads

Microsoft recognized as a leader by Gartner. It is true that Gartner’s Magic Quadrant has been controversial in the past, but the industry trusts it. And according to Gartner, Microsoft is the market leader. And what is your opinion?

5 Forrester predictions for the future of IT. How does the future look for the IT industry? What can be gleaned from the trends? If you’re an IT professional, you probably have nothing to fear.


DATES TO KEEP IN MIND

31 December 2021 – Last day of Microsoft Open License Program (OLP). From the start of 2022 OLP products are available in CSP (source, source 2).

1 January 2022 – No more transacting in OLP program. From then on perpetual licenses are available in CSP.

1 March 2022 – First Microsoft 365 price increase since 2011 (source). It’s going to be a substantial price increase.


😂 On a Less Serious Note


☁️ Last but not least …

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