Microsoft’s September Product Terms: There's a new security product table in town

Mary Jo Foley is the Editor in Chief at Directions on Microsoft. Before joining Directions, Mary Jo has worked as... more

As Microsoft continues to roll out more add-ons for its Microsoft 365 suites, the complexity of its product-licensing and support matrices continue to grow. The result? Microsoft needs to come up with new ways to try to guide its customers to the appropriate licensing documentation.

On the first of September, as the company does each month, Microsoft rolled out the latest set of new product licensing terms for its enterprise customers. The September terms didn’t include much new of significance. The company did, however, add a new section worth noting to its Product Terms site.

Microsoft Security Portfolio Product Terms mapping section, found under (and tacked onto) “Other Legal Terms” section of the Product Terms site. This new section groups Microsoft’s growing number of security and compliance product offerings by Microsoft’s brand families; Defender, Entra, Intune, Priva, and Purview, plus the E5, F5, and G5 Microsoft 365 suites. The applicable terms for the nearly 50 individual products listed are hot-linked within the chart.

Microsoft links quite a few of the listed security products and services into the sprawling “Azure” service terms bucket. And even in cases where products like Defender for IoT actually do have their own, distinct Product Terms entry, the chart still confusingly advises customers to look through the Azure section for the applicable terms.

At best, a ‘partial patch’

“I suspect Microsoft must have been getting beaten up regarding ‘where can I find the licensing terms for XYZ,’ especially for the ‘batteries not included’ stuff,” said Directions on Microsoft analyst Rob Horwitz. However, “the huge ‘Microsoft Azure” section has become a dumping ground, including for terms related to ‘batteries not included’ stuff for M365.”

In Directions on Microsoft parlance, “batteries not included’ refers to add-ons that one might assume would be included in a Microsoft E3, E5 or other licensing plan, but instead are available as separate paid add-ons. The not-included features are like the missing batteries in an appliance or toy; often discovered too late and resulting in some angry customers (and maybe even bawling children — or licensing managers).

The new Security Portfolio Product Terms mapping chart isn’t really a fix, Horwitz notes. “At best, it’s a partial patch.”

In other September product terms news, there are a couple of product name changes of potential interest.

Microsoft has rebranded the product formerly known as “Microsoft Viva Sales” to “Microsoft Sales Copilot.” Viva Sales/Sales Copilot provides Outlook and Teams add-in applications that help users add and update Dynamics 365 data without accessing Dynamics 365 separately or copying data manually.

Microsoft also has made changes to the Dynamics 365 services line-up by switching up what constitutes “Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.” The existing Customer Insights customer data capabilities are being relabeled “Customer Insights—Data,” while the real-time marketing capabilities (previously known as Dynamics 365 Marketing) now are called “Customer Insights—Journeys.”