News
Stay up to date with what’s changing across the public cloud landscape
This page brings together the updates that matter to your business, from funding opportunities and product changes to new programmes and technical shifts. It’s designed to help you understand what’s changed and where to focus next.
Monthly update
For a complete overview of programme changes, product updates and opportunities, download the latest monthly update.
The PDF includes detailed guidance across key solution areas, along with upcoming events and partner actions to consider.
Azure service updates and retirement
Recent updates focus on improving migration planning, operational visibility and platform capability, alongside clear timelines for services that are being phased out.
On the update side, there are improvements to service health notifications, giving better visibility into database environments. New assessment capabilities within migration tools now support planning for file share transitions from on premises environments into cloud storage, covering both Windows and Linux scenarios.
There are also enhancements across core services. Kubernetes environments now include additional configuration and observability features, while network monitoring introduces rule impact analysis in preview to help assess changes before they are applied. Service Bus security has been strengthened with new perimeter controls, and virtual machine capabilities have been extended with new disk and caching options.
From a data and platform perspective, SQL updates introduce built in code analysis and security configuration without requiring manual changes. There is also tighter integration with Fabric environments, alongside improved tooling for importing and exporting database packages.
Alongside these updates, several retirement timelines have been confirmed. Support for Service Fabric on older Windows Server versions will end in March 2027, requiring upgrades to newer versions. Azure DNS endpoints for service accounts and Python support in certain app services will also be retired at the same time.
For full details, see:
- “Azure Service Updates Top Picks” (page 4)
- “Azure Service Updates Retirement” (page 5)
in the monthly update.
Copilot Chat update
Changes to Copilot Chat mark a shift in how access is structured and monetised.
From April 2026, free in app Copilot Chat experiences are being removed for most unlicensed users. Larger tenants lose access entirely unless users are licensed, while smaller tenants retain limited, throttled access.
This change moves Copilot fully behind a paid licensing model. It creates a clear need to review usage, licensing positions and adoption strategies, particularly for larger environments.
For more detail, see “Copilot Chat” (page 13) in the monthly update.
Intune new features
Upcoming changes expand Intune capabilities and adjust how they are licensed.
From mid 2026, several features that previously required add-ons will be included within core licensing tiers. This includes remote help, advanced analytics, tunnel capabilities and firmware over the air updates for certain plans.
Higher tier plans will also gain access to broader functionality, including endpoint privilege management, enterprise application management, cloud PKI and deeper zero trust integrations. These changes are being rolled out in stages, with pricing updates from July 2026.
For more detail, see “Microsoft Intune” (page 18) in the monthly update.
Purview features
Recent updates focus on improving data visibility, investigation and long term compliance capabilities.
New functionality enables item level investigation of data risk, allowing teams to identify overshared content using insights such as sensitivity labels and sharing links. Actions can then be taken directly, including removing access, notifying users or applying protection policies.
Additional investigation tools now allow administrators to remove sensitive or overshared content as part of response workflows, supported by AI driven analysis to surface potential risks more quickly.
Looking ahead, further enhancements are planned. These include customer managed encryption for eDiscovery, improved scanning of unsupported file types through OCR and expanded retention and labelling controls, with rollouts expected through 2026 and 2027.
For more detail, see:
- “Purview What’s New Now” (page 16)
- “Purview Future” (page 17)
in the monthly update.
Bridge to the Cloud 3
This promotion is designed to support the transition from on premises environments to cloud based services.
It provides eligible customers with a 30% discount when moving to cloud subscriptions, along with dual access rights, free renewals on existing plans and additional licensing benefits over a three year term.
The offer supports a more structured migration approach, allowing customers to maintain access to existing environments while transitioning workloads over time.
For more detail, see “Bridge to the Cloud 3” (page 24) in the monthly update.
Connect
 |
 |
 |
© 2026 Arrow Electronics.