Microsoft News & Updates:

1: Retirement of standalone SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business plans (Plan 1 and Plan 2)

Microsoft is evolving its cloud storage and collaboration offerings and is retiring the standalone SharePoint Online (SPO) plan 1 and plan 2 and OneDrive for Business (ODB) plan 1 and plan 2 SKUs. This change reflects low customer demand for standalone offerings, increased instances of unintended or nonstandard usage, and higher operational costs associated with maintaining these plans. As Microsoft continues to invest in secure, scalable, and integrated experiences, Microsoft 365 suites remain the primary way customers access SharePoint and OneDrive capabilities.

Key timelines:

• Retirement announcement: this change is communicated to customers on January 28, 2026.
• End of sale: June 2026 (no new tenants/customers after May 31, 2026; renewals for existing customers only).
• End of life: January 2027 (no renewals; existing contracts continue until expiration).
• End of service: December 2029 (all standalone plans fully retired; customers must transition to Microsoft 365 suites, capacity packs, or pay-as-you-go storage options).

2: Licensing updates extend access to advanced capabilities in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Places

Microsoft mission has always been to empower organizations to achieve more—through intelligent communication, inclusive collaboration, and connected workplace experiences. Today’s workforces need tools that helps customers interact, communicate, and coordinate with greater intelligence and precision. To support this need, Microsoft is pleased to announce upcoming Microsoft Teams licensing updates designed to make powerful collaboration capabilities more accessible than ever.

More information can be found on the Microsoft Teams Blog here

3: Important Update – CCx Site Maintenance on Sunday, February 1, 2026

To prepare our Cloud Commerce platform (CCx) at https://buy.insight.com for Microsoft’s local‑currency price adjustments for Commercial Cloud products (effective February 1, 2026), the platform will be temporarily unavailable for all EMEA instances beside of the UK, on Sunday February 1, 2026, while pricing updates are applied.

During this maintenance window, customers will not be able to access the site. Service will resume as soon as the updates are complete.

4: Important Reminder - Effective February 1, 2026 - Local currency price adjustments for Microsoft’s Commercial Cloud:

Starting February 1, 2026, Microsoft will adjust pricing for Commercial Cloud services to better align with global levels in the following currencies:

• Swiss Franc (CHF):  -9.5%
• Euro (EUR):  -7.4%
• Swedish Krona (SEK): -13.5%

This change ensures consistent regional pricing for customers across different geographies and currencies.

Key Details:

• Applies to new purchases and renewals from February 1, 2026.
• Existing subscriptions remain unchanged.
• Azure services under Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) are priced in USD globally and will not be affected.
• On-premises software pricing remains unchanged.

For more information, please refer to the official Microsoft announcement here

Insight's Cloud Commerce Platform – Improvements and Developments:

Cloud Commerce Platform - CCx on https://buy.insight.com - January 10, 2026:

1: Updated Microsoft Cloud Care Agreement:

We have updated our Microsoft Cloud Care Terms & Conditions.

To ensure full transparency and compliance, customers will be asked to accept the latest Terms & Conditions before they can place a Microsoft order.

2: Contact Us link added to the CCx navigation bar:

In this deployment, we enhanced customer access to support resources by adding a “Contact Us” link directly to the standard navigation bar on the storefront.

Previously, customers had to navigate through several steps to locate contact information, which created unnecessary friction in the user experience and delayed their ability to reach support when needed.

3: Change Order Email Updates:

We enhanced the "Change Order" email to provide customers with clear, comprehensive information that aligns with the detailed view available on the storefront when modifying a subscription.

These enhancements give customers immediate, reliable confirmation of their subscription updates, reduce the need to revisit the storefront for verification, minimize support inquiries related to change confirmations, and strengthen trust in the system by delivering consistent and comprehensive communication across all touchpoints.

The updated solution includes three key improvements:

• Generating a more detailed email summary for NCE “Manage Quantity” changes.
• Clearly highlighting the quantity changed and the resulting impact on the total subscription count.
• Ensuring customers receive an email output that mirrors the transparency and detail of the storefront experience.

4: Auto Renewal Off & E-Mail Notification Updates:

In preparation of the upcoming Microsoft Change to Subscription Grace Period – Effective April 1, 2026, we are adding clear and detailed information into the manage renewal process and into the renewal email notification.

For customers who choose not to renew their subscriptions purchased through Insight, this subscription will be cancelled at the end of its term and will immediately enter a disabled status.

While in a disabled status:

• Users will immediately lose access to files and services.
• Administrators will retain access to the admin portal and can back up organizational data for 90 days.
• Any data left in the tenant may be deleted after 90 days and will be permanently deleted no later than 180 days following cancellation.

Cloud Consumption Reporting - CCR on https://ccr.insight.com - December 11, 2025:

AWS Consumption:
 

The December 2025 CCR release focuses on implementing background enhancements to integrate AWS consumption data into our Cloud Consumption Reporting dashboard.
This is part of a multi-phase rollout, and we are planning ro rollout this feature in our next release in January 2026.