Armario de red mural de una pequeña empresa con un conmutador y cables sin ordenar

Windows Server 2016 ESU is billed from 12 January, whenever you buy it

Windows Server 2016 leaves support on 12 January 2027, 104 days from now. Everyone repeats that; the Azure Arc billing page, less so: licences provisioned after that date are back-billed to 12 January, the charge appears as a separate line item, deactivating and reactivating does not avoid it, deleting and recreating does not either, and Microsoft writes that "there are no conditions under which it can be avoided". Deferring stops being free. And before the price comes eligibility, which is where many smaller companies fall out: on-premises ESU requires Software Assurance or an equivalent Server Subscription, SPLA is not available for 2016, neither is the Visual Studio benefit, and transitioning from Volume Licensing is not supported with Azure Arc. Also: why the bill is decided by how you count cores —16 physical per machine or 8 virtual per VM, with Microsoft's own 1,024-versus-506-core example—, what to ask your CSP now that no list price has been published, and the option that is not on the slide.

Windows Licensing Infrastructure

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Oficina diáfana vacía con mesas de trabajo al fondo y una zona de sofás en primer plano

27 Sep 2026 10 min read

AI speeds up what you write, not what you can deploy

Of the two things DORA said about AI in 2024, in 2025 it observed the opposite for one — delivery throughput flipped sign — and exactly the same for the other, which is the one that costs money: more AI still comes with less delivery stability. Two consecutive reports, same sign. With the METR trial that measured a 19% slowdown where participants perceived a 20% improvement — and the caveats its own authors published afterwards, including a second trial with intervals that cross zero — what the 2026 ROI report assumes in money (one point of change failure rate, $344,000) and the four things that have to take more flow before you buy anything: an environment that looks like production, small batches, a timed rollback and telemetry by symptom.

AI Automation Data

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Nave industrial vacía con el suelo de hormigón, un palé en primer plano y la puerta abierta al fondo

25 Sep 2026 8 min read

Data Act: in January 2027 leaving the cloud becomes free; moving does not

On 12 January 2027 your cloud provider loses the right to charge you for leaving: Article 29(1) of the EU Data Act forbids it. But the big three already dropped that fee back in 2024, so what changes is not the amount — it is that this stops being a conditional credit programme and starts reaching the small providers too. The exit invoice disappears; the cost of leaving stays exactly where it was. The definition of "functional equivalence" speaks of "a minimum level of functionality", binds infrastructure services only, and covers only the features both source and destination offer alike. What you actually get back, what the trade-secret carve-out hides, why multicloud traffic still gets billed, the exact deadlines you can already enforce (two months, thirty days, seven months) and the exit drill that reveals the number no contract contains.

Cloud Regulation Data

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Fila de mesas de oficina con los monitores apagados y una silla vacía

25 Sep 2026 8 min read

Office 2021 does not stop working: it stops being tested against Microsoft 365

On 13 October 2026 nothing switches off: Word will open, Outlook will sync and nobody will notice. That day two clocks start at once and only one makes noise. The first is the ordinary end of support — Microsoft stops providing technical support, bug fixes and security updates. The second raises no alert: Microsoft stops checking that its own services still work with your Office, and the outage arrives months later without you touching a thing. The two different dates Microsoft itself publishes, the Office 2016/2019 precedent from 2023, and the finding that decides who is in a hurry: Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro expires in the very same second, but the Enterprise edition holds on for another year.

Workplace Licensing Microsoft 365

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Cajas de archivo numeradas en estanterías de un depósito documental

9 Sep 2026 9 min read

One checkbox will protect a whole workload in Microsoft 365 Backup. What it bills is not what you see in the usage report

Full Workload Backup reaches general availability from mid-September: one policy per workload protecting every SharePoint site, or every OneDrive account, or every mailbox, including the ones created later. List price is $0.15 per GB per month, applied to a base that adds in the second-stage recycle bin and online archives. Microsoft warns that its own usage report includes neither, "and is thus incomplete", and offers a calculator that does ask for them. The problem is that the report is what everybody looks at.

Backup Microsoft 365 Costs

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Mesa de una oficina administrativa a última hora: archivadores de anillas, una calculadora de sobremesa y un archivador metálico con un cajón abierto

17 Aug 2026 5 min read

5% more for paying monthly: what changes on 1 October, and when not to switch

From 1 October 2026 Microsoft will add a 5% uplift to CSP software subscriptions on annual terms billed monthly: it names Windows Server, SQL Server, CALs and System Center, and leaves the list open. The product does not change; the price of money does. The full arithmetic — that 5% works out at borrowing at roughly 11% a year — why your date is not 1 October but each line's renewal date, and the cases where moving is not worth it.

Licensing Microsoft Costs

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everyWAN Blog

Windows Server 2016 ESU is billed from 12 January, whenever you buy it

AI speeds up what you write, not what you can deploy

Data Act: in January 2027 leaving the cloud becomes free; moving does not

Office 2021 does not stop working: it stops being tested against Microsoft 365

One checkbox will protect a whole workload in Microsoft 365 Backup. What it bills is not what you see in the usage report

5% more for paying monthly: what changes on 1 October, and when not to switch

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