Latest news with #standardization
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Microsoft axes volume discounts for SaaS suites
This story was originally published on CIO Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily CIO Dive newsletter. Dive Brief: Microsoft will standardize pricing for its Online Services products, which include Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, effective Nov. 1 or at a customer's next renewal date, the company said Tuesday. The change eliminates volume licensing program discounts under Enterprise Agreement and Microsoft Products and Services Agreement licenses but does not affect on-premises software pricing. 'This update builds on the consistent pricing model already in place for services like Azure and reflects our ongoing commitment to greater transparency and alignment across all purchasing channels,' Microsoft said. The move hits Microsoft's largest customers hardest, raising costs by 13.6% or more on ubiquitous SaaS products, according to Gartner. 'This is a double-digit increase in list prices in the biggest software vendor expense for tens of thousands of customers,' Gartner Senior Director Analyst Stephen White told CIO Dive. 'These are big companies that expect not to pay retail.' Dive Insight: Microsoft's pricing model adjustment coincides with heightened IT budget scrutiny triggered by shifting U.S. trade policy. Last week, President Donald Trump threatened to impose levies of approximately 100% on imported semiconductors, which had previously been protected from the tariff regime. The U.S. government, along with organizations partnered with Microsoft's worldwide Education division, will not be subject to any pricing changes, the company said in the announcement. In Europe, where the company's licensing practices have been under the regulatory microscope for several years, no such privileges were extended. 'That will be very visible to European governments and in other countries around the world. We've already seen examples of European governments that have chosen to move away from Microsoft,' White said, pointing to Denmark and Germany's Schleswig-Holstein province. Microsoft's move also comes just two weeks after the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority took Microsoft to task for market-distorting product pricing. 'Microsoft's licensing practices are adversely impacting the competitiveness of AWS and Google in the supply of cloud services, particularly in competing for customers that purchase cloud services which use the relevant Microsoft software as an input,' the watchdog agency said in the final decision of its nearly two-year cloud services market investigation. Price increases aren't new to Microsoft customers. Last year, the vendor updated terms for the Dynamics 365 business application suite, raising customer costs by an average of 11%. In 2022, the Microsoft 365 office productivity bundle received its first significant pricing bump in a decade. The Tuesday announcement upends a tiered structure that had been in place for more than two decades for large enterprise customers, White said. Organizations with fewer than 2,400 seats — Level A customers — lost their Enterprise Agreement discounts in 2018, while the larger Level B, C and D tier agreements were left in place. 'One of the worst-kept secrets in the enterprise software market is that Microsoft wants to eventually dispose of the vaunted Enterprise Agreement,' Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, said in an email. 'With all eyes on the dual tailwinds of Azure cloud growth, powered by the current AI hype cycle, Microsoft has finally decided to exercise its near-monopolistic control of the office productivity and core O/S space to pull the rug out from under its largest customer base.' The elimination of tiered pricing leaves room for enterprises with sufficient clout to negotiate individual discounts. Nonetheless, the changes will be a bitter pill for many customers. 'It's a significant change for large organizations with 15,000-plus users that have historically benefited from volume-based cloud licensing incentives,' Jeff Elliott, principal advisory director at Info-Tech Research, said in an email. The firm expects a wave of early renewals as customers try to lock in existing terms in advance of the November deadline. 'The longer-term concern here is that this will simplify Microsoft's path to phasing out the Enterprise Agreement model altogether, or consolidating licensing programs even more,' Elliott said. Microsoft did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Wednesday.
National Post
13-07-2025
- General
- National Post
J.D. Tuccille: U.S. Department of Education should be abolished
Article content In 2017, an article in the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Ed. magazine noted that, 'The federal government uses a complex system of funding mechanisms, policy directives and the soft but considerable power of the presidential bully pulpit to shape what, how and where students learn.' Article content In fact, state and local educators, largely linked by the culture and ideology that permeates teachers' unions and the federal Department of Education, are usually more than happy to have their arms twisted into accepting the latest trends favoured by Washington. The result is less variety and experimentation among schools that are locally operated but don't want to offend the feds. Maybe that would be tolerable if such standardization produced well-educated kids, but it doesn't. Article content In January, the Department of Education announced the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — often called 'the nation's report card' — by admitting they 'reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind.' Article content Inefficient and unresponsive public schools aren't a new thing — Americans have complained about them for decades. But they're now doing more than complaining — they're heading for the exits in favour of alternatives, such as private schools, publicly funded but privately run charter schools, co-operative learning pods, micro-schools and various forms of homeschooling. Article content Since the COVID-19 pandemic, while traditional public schools saw enrolment decline by over a million students, private schools, which educate nine per cent of combined public and private students, picked up enrolment, many paying tuition with the help of tax credits and education savings accounts explicitly established to support school choice. At the same time, charter schools increased enrolment by 400,000 and now educate roughly seven per cent of all students. Article content Homeschooling is harder to measure since not all states track those who choose DIY education, but the Johns Hopkins University Homeschool Hub estimates that six per cent of students are educated through various homeschooling approaches and that, 'The number of home-schooled students is going up as the total number of U.S. students in going down.' Culture wars and battles over politicized classrooms — exemplified in those competing California and Texas textbooks — only serve to accelerate the exodus. Article content If the U.S. Department of Education is doing anything, it's presiding over a decline in public education that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Cara Fitzpatrick dramatically overstates in her 2023 book, ' The Death of Public Schools.' The public schools aren't dead, but they're mortally wounded and shedding support after having been rendered repulsive by their own advocates. Article content In March, President Trump ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to 'take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the states and local communities.' He's since laid off almost half the department's workforce — a move boosted this week when the U.S. Supreme Court eased the way for mass firings of federal workers. Article content Article content Article content
Finextra
07-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Cross-Border Payments: How The Passion of The G20 Drives Improvement
Providing insight into the G20's objectives and progress, Katja Lehr, Europe Product Head & EMEA Payments & Industry & Advocacy Lead, joined the FinextraTV studio at EBAday. Providing insights into why the G20 is so important to the progression of cross-border payments and a collective standardization, Lehr spotlights the hard work and passion of the people within the task forces.
Forbes
26-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Key Tech Firms Unite As Google Donates A2A To Linux Foundation
Neurons Major technology vendors are converging around a single protocol for artificial intelligence agent communication, potentially ending the fragmentation that has limited the deployment of enterprise AI. Google's donation of its Agent2Agent protocol to the Linux Foundation brings together Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP and ServiceNow as foundational members of a new standardization effort. The move addresses a fundamental challenge facing enterprise technology leaders: how to deploy AI agents that can work together across different platforms without requiring custom integrations for each vendor relationship. Current enterprise AI implementations often create isolated systems that cannot share information or coordinate tasks, limiting the automation potential that drives AI investment decisions. Technical Foundation Enables Cross-Platform Agent Communication The a2a protocol operates as a communication layer that allows AI agents to discover each other's capabilities, exchange information securely and coordinate complex tasks regardless of their underlying technology stack. The system uses JSON-RPC 2.0 over HTTP for standardized communication, with server-sent events enabling real-time streaming interactions between agents. Agent discovery occurs through 'Agent Cards,' which serve as digital business cards that contain capability descriptions and connection information. When an agent needs to complete a task requiring specialized expertise, it can query available agents, review their capabilities and establish secure communication channels without human intervention. The protocol supports both synchronous request-response patterns and asynchronous workflows, accommodating enterprise scenarios where tasks may require human approval or extend across multiple business days. Authentication mechanisms ensure that only authorized agents can access specific capabilities while maintaining audit trails for compliance requirements. Amazon Web Services has already demonstrated practical implementation by creating tools that expose Bedrock agents through a2a endpoints. This enables enterprises using AWS infrastructure to make their AI agents accessible to agents running on other platforms, thereby creating the interoperability that enterprise architectures require. Market Convergence Accelerates Standards Adoption The Linux Foundation announcement represents the consolidation of previously competing approaches to agent interoperability. More than 100 technology companies now support the a2a protocol, expanding from the initial 50 partners when Google first launched the specification in April. Microsoft has integrated a2a support into Azure AI Foundry and enabled a2a agent invocation through Copilot Studio. This integration allows enterprises already committed to Microsoft's AI toolchain to participate in multi-vendor agent workflows without replacing existing investments. Salesforce contributed the Agent Card concept that became central to a2a's capability discovery mechanism. The company positions agent interoperability as essential for reaching what it terms 'Level 4 multi-agent orchestration,' where specialized agents collaborate across enterprise systems. The convergence creates particular implications for Cisco's AGNTCY initiative, which has been developing infrastructure for what it calls the 'Internet of Agents'. Rather than competing with a2a, Cisco is integrating a2a support directly into AGNTCY's core components including the Directory, Identity, SLIM Messaging and Observability frameworks. This approach transforms AGNTCY from a potential competing standard into complementary infrastructure that enhances a2a's capabilities. Strategic Implications for Technology Decision Makers The Linux Foundation's governance model offers vendor neutrality, addressing enterprise concerns about being locked into proprietary ecosystems. Technology leaders can invest in a2a implementations with confidence that the protocol will evolve through community input rather than single-vendor control. Standardization creates opportunities for enterprises to implement modular AI strategies, where specialized agents from different vendors can collaborate on complex workflows. For example, a customer service workflow might combine Salesforce agents for CRM interactions, ServiceNow agents for incident management and AWS agents for data analysis, all coordinating through a2a protocols. However, successful implementation requires careful architectural planning. Enterprises need to establish agent governance frameworks, implement monitoring capabilities and develop policies for inter-agent data sharing before deploying production systems. The protocol provides the technical foundation, but organizational readiness determines success. Technology leaders should evaluate their current integration capabilities and security postures before committing to multi-agent architectures. While a2a reduces technical barriers to agent interoperability, it does not eliminate the need for robust data governance, identity management and compliance frameworks that enterprise AI deployments require.
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Frankfurt China-Germany Standardization Cooperation Innovation Center Launched
Taicang Municipal People's Government FRANKFURT, Germany, June 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The China-Germany Standardization Cooperation Innovation Center was officially inaugurated in Frankfurt on June 23. The opening ceremony, held along the scenic banks of the Rhine River, marked a significant step forward in enhancing standardization and cultural exchange between China and Germany. The Frankfurt center is an extension of the Suzhou China-Germany Standardization Cooperation Innovation Center and represents Jiangsu Province's first standardization innovation platform established in Germany by a local government. It was jointly established by the Taicang Municipal People's Government and the Suzhou Market Supervision Administration under the guidance of the National Standardization Management Committee. The center will focus on four core areas: standardization policy exchange, standard system research, the development of international standards, and the cultivation of international standardization talents. The core mission of the center is to strengthen collaboration with renowned German standardization bodies such as DIN and DKE, facilitating a bridge for China-Germany standard information sharing, promoting the alignment of technical regulations, and enabling Suzhou (Taicang) enterprises to participate in the formulation of international standards. This collaboration will inject "standardization" power into deepening China-Germany economic and trade relations. Wang Xiangyuan, Secretary of the Taicang Municipal Committee, emphasized that standardization is crucial for the long-term success of enterprises. Taicang has had a 30-year cooperation history with Germany, with over 550 German-funded enterprises located in the city, forming a robust industrial ecosystem in areas such as high-end manufacturing. Florian Spiteller, Director of International Cooperation at DKE noted that international electrical standards are central to promoting technological and cultural exchange, helping companies expand into new markets and produce reliable, safe products. The official operation of the Frankfurt China-Germany Standardization Cooperation Innovation Center represents a solid step in the process of advancing standardization and fostering deeper trade and standardization cooperation between China and Germany. This center will inject fresh momentum into bilateral cooperation. In recent years, Taicang has actively promoted standardization exchanges with Germany, striving to create a new model for China-Germany standardization cooperation that spans Suzhou, the Yangtze River Delta, and the entire country. Through these efforts, Taicang has become home to a strong base of German enterprises with solid manufacturing capabilities and a good standardization foundation. Taicang enterprises have led and participated in the development of numerous international and national standards, reinforcing the city's position as a key player in international standardization. CONTACT: Mr. Feng Tel: 86-10-63074558
