On June 16, Microsoft announced European sovereign solutions, including a new offering called Microsoft 365 Local that has nothing to do with Microsoft 365 apart from the need to connect to Azure from time to time. Microsoft 365 Local is an on-premises packaged solution. There’s nothing bad about that because some companies need to run on-premises servers for their own reasons. But calling it Microsoft 365?
Microsoft’s April 17 announcement that OWA in Exchange Server will not support access to online archives after May 12, 2025, surprised quite a few people. However, the decision is entirely logical and is driven by falling mailbox numbers on-premises and the need to match engineering and support costs with revenue. Outlook classic continues to support access to online archives. Maybe Outlook will be the Exchange on-premises client for the future.
Microsoft is introducing a Dedicated Exchange Hybrid App to facilitate the transition away from EWS to use Graph API requests for rich hybrid coexistence (free/busy, Mail Tips, and user photos). The plan involves the creation of an Entra ID app to hold EWS permissions (stage 1) followed by Graph permissions (stage 2). Everything has to be complete by October 1, 2026, because that’s when EWS goes away.