Author: Tony Redmond

Latest Articles

Microsoft Plans Automatic Upgrade of Apple Mail App Profiles 15 Comments

Microsoft Plans Automatic Upgrade of Apple Mail App Profiles

Tens of millions of Apple devices connect to Exchange Online user mailboxes. The mail app profile on many devices still use basic authentication, and that's a big problem because Microsoft will start to remove support for basic authentication for EWS and EAS, the two connectivity protocols used by Apple devices, from October 1, 2022. Microsoft and Apple have come up with a cunning plan to work around the problem. Success requires some administrator intervention to make sure that the app used by Apple to update the mail app profile can work without prompting the user for consent. It's time to act!

June 16, 2022
Microsoft Charging for Teams Export Graph APIs from July 2 Comments

Microsoft Charging for Teams Export Graph APIs from July

Microsoft will begin charging to use of Teams Export Graph APIs on a consumption meter basis from July 5. That might not seem such a bad idea, unless you're an ISV and would like to use the APIs for products like backup or tenant-to-tenant migration solutions. Or the tenants who will have to pay for the costs through Azure subscriptions. It seems like Microsoft is the only winner here and all the new APIs will do is add to their swelling cloud profits.

June 6, 2022
Microsoft Announces the Future for Exchange Server 18 Comments
Exchange hybrid migrations

Microsoft Announces the Future for Exchange Server

On June 2, Microsoft made a bunch of announcements covering the future for Exchange Server. A new version will come in 2025 that will follow Microsoft's modern lifecycle policy (i..e., no end of support dates). The downside is that customers must install updates and remain current, and must be covered by Software Assurance. For those who really want to stay with on-premises, this is a good day. And the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) is coming back (hooray!) albeit in a virtual format (boo!).

June 2, 2022
Microsoft Plans Big Security Improvement for Unprotected Office 365 Tenants

Microsoft Plans Big Security Improvement for Unprotected Office 365 Tenants

Microsoft plans to enable Azure AD Security Defaults for Office 365 tenants created prior to October 2019. The move will protect an additional 60 million Azure AD accounts against common attacks by enforcing MFA more broadly. It's a big deal in terms of improving the overall security posture of Office 365. If you don't want to use Security Defaults, tenant administrators can switch them off.

June 1, 2022
Nuggets for IT Pros Hard to Find at Microsoft Build 2022

Nuggets for IT Pros Hard to Find at Microsoft Build 2022

Build 2022 is not an event that many IT Pros would naturally attend. The conference is focused on meeting the needs of developers rather than managing IT environments. However, buried in the slew of Microsoft announcements, there's a few topics that catch the eye. Here's what we found.

May 25, 2022
Three Steps to Securing Microsoft Teams

Three Steps to Securing Microsoft Teams

Any discussion about securing Microsoft Teams can rapidly descend into a detailed debate about different policy settings. But when you focus on what really needs to be done, it's all about making sure that user access is secure, external access is controlled, and individual teams are managed. Easy!

May 23, 2022
Microsoft Launches Group Ownership Governance Policy 10 Comments

Microsoft Launches Group Ownership Governance Policy

The Microsoft 365 Groups Ownership Governance policy is now generally available. Also known as the ownerless group policy, this capability allows organizations to make sure that all groups have owners by detecting ownerless groups and extending invitations to active group members to become owners. It's a useful capability, especially in large tenants with many groups.

May 16, 2022
Microsoft Revamps Exchange On-Premises Servicing Model 10 Comments

Microsoft Revamps Exchange On-Premises Servicing Model

Microsoft released Exchange Server 2019 CU12 and Exchange Server 2016 CU23 on April 20. They also made some important announcements, including a new half-yearly servicing cadence for Exchange 2019, availability of free Exchange 2019 keys for hybrid servers, support for Windows Server 2022, and the beginning of the ability to remove the last on-premises Exchange server.

April 20, 2022
Using Cross-Tenant Access Settings for Azure B2B Collaboration 15 Comments

Using Cross-Tenant Access Settings for Azure B2B Collaboration

When Microsoft released cross-tenant access settings into preview, the natural focus was on how this capability enabled external access to Teams shared channels. However, the story is deeper because cross-tenant access settings are also available for Azure AD B2B Collaboration (aka guest user access). A different blocking mechanism is used and it delivers better results, once you're used to the new method.

April 18, 2022