From our team to yours, happy holidays!
While the past year has been more than unusual, we’re grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to help others and grow as a team. We’d like to extend a special thanks to our wonderful clients, partners, and hard working staff.
As we approach the end of this year, we look forward to what the new year brings. In this edition, we’ll highlight our annual fundraiser, key Microsoft updates, and an announcement on our webinar series.
Our Holiday Fundraising Goal
2020 was a difficult year for most (if not all) of us. While we’re a little more adapted to the new world, 2021 has still presented challenges.
The Point Alliance Daily Bread fundraiser takes place every holiday season and, this year, fighting hunger is more important than ever.
In the past year, there were 1.45 million visits to Toronto food banks. To put it into perspective, that’s almost half of the city’s population.
This represents a 47% increase compared to 2020 and is 1.5 times higher than the previous 2008 record. To place that into perspective, food bank visits are higher now than they were at the peak of the 2008 recession.
Help Us Fight Hunger
With the housing crisis, loss of job security, and lack of government checks, more and more individuals are finding themselves choosing between paying rent and buying food.
Our Daily Bread Food Bank Challenge is back and stronger than ever. We’re committed to raising $10,000 this season for Toronto’s hungry.
Please donate to our fundraiser and help us fight hunger exacerbated by COVID-19.
Here’s how your contribution will help Daily Bread fight hunger:
- $25 will provide a family of four with two to three days of fresh and wholesome food.
- $40 will ensure ten hot meals for people at a community meal program.
- $80 can fill a senior’s cupboards with food this month so they don’t have to choose between paying the rent and buying groceries.
DONATE NOW
Key Updates for Microsoft Customers
Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience
Starting January 2022, Microsoft will bring seat-based cloud offers to New Commerce Experience (NCE) for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Windows 365.
Effective March of next year, new orders can only be transacted through Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience. All M365 Modern SKUs will increase by 15% in price no matter the term.
By February 2023, all remaining subscriptions on the previous CSP experience will not qualify for renewal. Theses subscriptions must move to NCE.
For full details on Microsoft’s NCE updates, click here.
Updates to Microsoft Pricing & Plans
Starting March of 2022, Microsoft subscriptions and products will reflect changes in pricing.
Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans are increasing by up to 20% for commercial customers. Enterprise and SMB plans will also increase, by up to 25%.
Microsoft is extending unlimited audio conferencing dial-in under Microsoft Teams across paid commercial plans. This means that multiple Enterprise, SMB, and Frontline plans that did not include this feature now will.
Audio conferencing will remain free until May 2022 to account for the time between this announcement and availability of the extension.
S4S 2022 Reboot
As we end 2021 and approach a new year, we look forward to the opportunities and possibilities 2022 may bring.
We are very excited to share with you all that we will be rebooting our Solutions for Success (S4S) webinar series in 2022!
For our new readers, the S4S series runs every month and covers key tips and updates on Microsoft products.
Join us at 11:30am every third Tuesday of the month to troubleshoot problems or learn something new. We’ve revived the series to provide quick but informative sessions on new and current topics.
Our first webinar will cover implementing and leveraging Microsoft Endpoint Manager—from benefits to who the platform would be ideal for.
As a part of our reboot, we will also be running the events fully under Microsoft Teams. From registration to attendance, we have simplified the process for our viewers by keeping all things S4S on Microsoft Teams.
See the full event list here.
