Procurement
The latest Procurement coverage — news, analysis, and updates from the WindowsNews.AI desk.
Google Sets Multicloud Standard with Zero Egress Fees in EU and UK, Pressuring Microsoft and AWS
Google Cloud has eliminated data transfer fees for organizations running workloads across multiple cloud providers in the European Union and the United Kingdom, a move that goes well beyond the EU...
Microsoft Sets Teams at $5 Per User in Global Unbundling to Settle EU Probe
Microsoft will sell Teams as a $5-per-user standalone app and offer Office suites without the collaboration tool to customers worldwide, capitulating to a European antitrust probe that began after a...
Microsoft’s GUI Copyright Gambit Could Obliterate Europe’s Second-Hand Software Market
Microsoft is pushing a novel legal theory that the graphical user interface and other non-code elements of Windows and Office are separate copyrighted works not subject to exhaustion—a doctrine...
Purdue Northwest Mandates Windows 11 Upgrades by August to Beat Microsoft's October 2025 Cutoff
Purdue University Northwest has drawn a line in the sand: all Windows 10 workstations must be upgraded to Windows 11 or replaced by August 2025 — a full two months before Microsoft officially ends...
SSMS 22 Preview 1 Ships Without Copilot as Microsoft Pivots to GitHub Integration
Database administrators who depend on AI assistance inside SQL Server Management Studio will find the first public preview of SSMS 22 conspicuously silent: Microsoft has confirmed it will ship...
UK Trade Department's M365 Copilot Trial Exposes Gap Between User Love and Hard ROI
The UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has published the results of a three-month pilot of Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the findings are a masterclass in cautious optimism. 72% of users said...
Leaked Plans Show Microsoft Folding Copilot Add-Ons Into $30 Seat, Shifting Hefty Usage to Credits
Microsoft is engineering a dramatic reshaping of its Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing strategy that will slash the effective per-user cost for many enterprises while seeding a consumption-based billing...
Microsoft Unleashes Free Copilot for Students at White House Tech Summit as Musk Boycotts
Microsoft dropped a bombshell at the White House’s tech summit on September 4, 2025: free access to Microsoft 365 Personal – including the AI-powered Copilot – for all U.S. college students for...
Microsoft’s $3.1B GSA Pact Delivers Free Copilot and Mass AI Training to Government and Schools
Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet in the race to embed AI across the public sector, announcing a sweeping, multi-year commitment that fuses government procurement reform with a massive education...
Microsoft Plans Copilot Price Cut: Bundling Role-Based AI at $30 Per User
Microsoft is poised to overhaul how it charges businesses for Copilot, scrapping the $20 per-user monthly add-on for role-based AI assistants and folding them directly into its core Microsoft 365...
Microsoft Pours ZAR 5.4bn into South Africa’s Cloud and AI – Can Governance Keep Pace?
Microsoft has committed an additional ZAR 5.4 billion to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in South Africa, anchoring a broader strategy that combines hyperscale data centres, nationwide...
Inside the OneGov Pact: How Microsoft's $3.1B Federal Offer Reshapes Government IT
The General Services Administration surprised Washington on September 2, 2025, by announcing a landmark OneGov agreement with Microsoft that immediately rewrites the economics of federal IT. The deal...