What the products are and how they relate.
WHAT THE MAJOR AREAS ARE
Productivity and collaboration, delivered as Microsoft 365 Cloud infrastructure and services, delivered as Azure Identity, delivered as Entra Low-code business applications, delivered as the Power Platform Device management, delivered as Intune On-premises server products, principally Windows Server Development tooling and frameworks, principally .NET
WHAT CONNECTS THEM
Identity. Almost everything authenticates against the same directory.
WHY THAT MATTERS MOST
Understanding identity explains more about how the ecosystem behaves than anything else.
WHAT THE COMMERCIAL MODEL IS
Subscription licensing, per user or per resource, billed monthly or annually.
WHAT THAT MEANS FOR PLANNING
Cost is ongoing and scales with people and usage, rather than being a one-time purchase.
WHAT MATTERS LOCALLY
Billing is in foreign currency for most plans, so cost moves with the exchange rate.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH EARLY
Which products you actually need, since overlapping capability is common.
WHAT TO AVOID
Buying capability you already have in another licence.
