News & Insights.
Technical clarity for business leaders. Stay ahead of the Microsoft ecosystem with our senior-level briefings.
EWS Is Being Switched Off. F1 and F3 Mailboxes Lose It on 1 October.
Two deadlines, not one. Kiosk, F1 and F3 mailboxes get HTTP 403 from 1 October 2026. The wider EWS switch-off runs from October to April 2027 and now covers Microsoft’s own apps too.
Microsoft Is Retiring SMS and Voice MFA. Passkeys Become the Default on 1 September.
Passkeys auto-enable across every Entra tenant on 1 September 2026. SMS and voice are fully retired on 1 February 2027, with blocking enforcement and no opt-out.
Azure Retires a Long List Before October: What to Check This Week
Document Intelligence v2.0 goes on 31 August, Azure Functions 1.0 on 14 September and Azure Virtual Desktop (Classic) on 30 September. The full list, in date order.
A Lot of Your Microsoft Estate Goes Out of Support on 13 October 2026
Office 2021, Office LTSC 2021, Windows Server 2012 R2 ESU, Windows 11 24H2 and Windows 10 2016 LTSB all reach the end of the line on the same day. Eight weeks out.
Microsoft Retires a Wave of Certifications and Replaces Them With AI Tracks
AZ-204 and AZ-500 are among the certifications retiring between June and August 2026, replaced by AI-focused equivalents. Existing certifications stay valid for one year.
Lorexus Now Publishes Its Microsoft Partner Discount
We are a Microsoft CSP partner. Rather than settling the discount case by case, we now publish what we pass back: up to 4% at 10-25 seats, rising to up to 12% at 300 and above.
What You Can Actually Do About the 2026 Microsoft 365 Price Increases
The 2026 price increases are fixed. What is still in your control is how many seats you pay for, which tier they sit on, when your term renews, and who you buy through.
Sentinel's 50 GB Commitment Tier Promo Now Runs Through December
Microsoft extended the Sentinel 50 GB commitment tier promotion to December 31, 2026, with locked pricing through March 2027. Commitment tiers reward accurate forecasting, not optimism.
Copilot in 30: A 25-User Trial Built to Produce a Real Signal
Microsoft's SMB Copilot trial launched August 1 with 25 users for 30 days. It is long enough for the second-week drop-off to happen before you buy — if you run it properly.
DLP in Defender for Cloud Apps Is Deprecated: Plan the Purview Move Now
Data Loss Prevention file policies in Defender for Cloud Apps retire on January 6, 2027. A migration tool is promised, but policy migration is never purely mechanical.
Local Currency Pricing Moves to a Single Annual Update Every January
Microsoft is replacing intra-year currency adjustments with one annual update each January, starting January 1, 2027. Budget planning gets easier; the window for currency arbitrage closes.
Azure Reservation Exchanges End February 1, 2027
Exchanges for savings plan-eligible services stop in February 2027. The flexibility that made over-committing safe is being withdrawn, which changes how commitments should be sized.