On the show this week, Paul and I are back from holiday and discussing the biggest show around. No, not the Olympics (although we touch on it) but TEC 2024, later this year. After the fallout from Crowdstrike Falcon has settled, we delve deeper into what went wrong, and what your options are. Plus we’re talking about changes coming to OneDrive for Business licensing, and Copilot is coming to Microsoft Planner.
Crowdstrike Falcon’s Fallout
A large majority of the the mainstream media reporting of the Crowdstrike issue focused perhaps unfairly on Microsoft, with the New York Times (for example) calling it a “Global Microsoft Outage“. If you are listening to the podcast, then you’ll probably know that’s not quite true, but it’s a fair perception due to the widespread use of Crowdstrike Falcon in large organizations across the globe.
Paul and I discuss whether moving to alternatives, such as Defender for Endpoint, is a good move or not, especially with the wider problems Microsoft is facing on the consumer front with the ongoing backlash from Windows Recall. While we don’t think it’s the year of the Linux desktop, forums like Reddit are seeing an uptick in people looking to move over (and as you might imagine, having some problems). Sadly Linux still has issues with a lack of specific drivers for certain hardware, and as Paul discusses – Macs are OK, but still have their own set of issues. Therefore we discuss strategies for spreading risk on your Windows estate and the importance of good recovery planning and testing.
Unlicensed OneDrive for Business Users Will be Charged
Microsoft made an announcement in the message center (on a Friday afternoon, which irked Paul a little) that unlicensed OneDrive for Business users (i.e. leavers) are to become charged, with Microsoft 365 Archive being the way forward from January 2025.
We discuss a similar situation to Inactive Mailboxes, which Microsoft wished to charge for a few years ago, and the point remains the same – it’s a little like a tax on staff turnover, as obviously the specific role in the business will accumulate a similar amount of data over time, so if someone leaves and is replaced, is it fair to charge in this circumstance?
Read more about this change on Tony Redmond’s Office 365 for IT pros blog
Copilot Comes to Planner – But There’s a Catch
Microsoft Planner is (according to Microsoft) part of the Microsoft 365 suite, so it might seem to be great news that Copilot is on its way to Planner.
But there’s a catch. Although Word, Excel, Whiteboard, Teams, and so on get Copilot as part of Microsoft 365, Copilot in Planner (currently in preview) is not included in the expensive Copilot for Microsoft 365 plan.
In case you missed it, Microsoft combined Planner and Project add-on licensing into the Project licensing, with the Copilot features for Planner arriving in Project Plan 3 licensing at a whopping $30 a month per user.
On the show, we discuss how this is likely to be received by organizations and ask the question: surely if it’s an app included in Microsoft 365, your Copilot license should cover using those advanced features with it? At a time when Microsoft is now classifying OpenAI as a competitor, giving more bang for your buck with Copilot would seem a smart move.
Read more about Copilot in Planner on the Microsoft Tech Community.
That’s all for this week’s show, so join me and Rich Dean in two weeks time for Season 4, Episode 25.
