Microsoft will raise Microsoft 365 and Office 365 prices in July 2026, citing new AI and security upgrades for business and government users.
The post Microsoft to Hike Office Prices in 2026, Citing Major AI and Security Overhauls appeared first on TechRepublic.
Microsoft will raise Microsoft 365 and Office 365 prices in July 2026, citing new AI and security upgrades for business and government users.
The post Microsoft to Hike Office Prices in 2026, Citing Major AI and Security Overhauls appeared first on TechRepublic.
A Cloudflare outage caused large chunks of the Internet to go dark Tuesday morning, temporarily impacting big platforms like X and ChatGPT.
“A fix has been implemented and we believe the incident is now resolved. We are continuing to monitor for errors to ensure all services are back to normal,” Cloudflare’s status page said. “Some customers may be still experiencing issues logging into or using the Cloudflare dashboard.”
The company initially attributed the widespread outages to “an internal service degradation” and provided updates as it sought a fix over the past two hours.
© NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto
Cisco’s Quantum Labs research team, part of Outshift by Cisco, has announced that they have completed a complete software solution prototype. The latest part is the Cisco Quantum Complier prototype, designed for distributed quantum computing across networked processors. In short, it allows a network of quantum computers, of all types, to participate in solving a single problem. Even better, this new compiler supports distributed quantum error correction. Instead of a quantum computer needing to have a huge number of qbits itself, the load can be spread out among multiple quantum computers. This coordination is handled across a quantum network, powered by Cisco’s Quantum Network entanglement chip, which was announced in May 2025. This network could also be used to secure communications for traditional servers as well.
For some quick background – one of the factors holding quantum computers back is the lack of quantity and quality when it comes to qubits. Most of the amazing things quantum computers can in theory do require thousands or millions of qubits. Today we have systems with around a thousand qubits. But those qubits need to be quality qubits. Qubits are extremely susceptible to outside interference. Qubits need to be available in quantity as well as quality. To fix the quality problem, there has been a considerable amount of work performed on error correction for qubits. But again, most quantum error correction routines require even more qubits to create logical ‘stable’ qubits. Research has been ongoing across the industry – everyone is looking for a way to create large amounts of stable qubits.
What Cisco is proposing is that instead of making a single quantum processor bigger to have more qubits, multiple quantum processors can be strung together with their quantum networking technology and the quality of the transmitted qubits should be ensured with distributed error correction. It’s an intriguing idea – as Cisco more or less points out we didn’t achieve scale with traditional computing by simply making a single CPU bigger and bigger until it could handle all tasks. Instead, multiple CPUs were integrated on a server and then those servers networked together to share the load. That makes good sense, and it’s an interesting approach. Just like with traditional CPUs, quantum processors will not suddenly stop growing – but if this works it will allow scaling of those quantum processors on a smaller scale, possibly ushering in useful, practical quantum computing sooner.
Is this the breakthrough needed to bring about the quantum computing revolution? At this point it’s a prototype – not an extensively tested method. Quantum computing requires so much fundamental physics research and is so complicated that its extremely hard to say if what Cisco is suggesting can usher in that new quantum age. But it is extremely interesting, and it will certainly be worth watching this approach as Cisco ramps up its efforts in quantum technologies.
Summary Bullets:
• Sale of BT Radianz to Transaction Network Services (TNS) is the latest phase of BT ‘tidying up’ its international business as it looks to focus mainly on the UK market.
• Underlines how service providers are having to refocus their strategies from general goals to specific, achievable ambitions.
BT has announced that it is to sell its BT Radianz business, which connects financial information exchange networks and a base of brokers, institutions, exchanges, and clearing houses across capital markets worldwide, to TNS, a global provider of ultra-low-latency trading infrastructure, connectivity, and market data services.
This marks the latest step in BT’s retreat from its historic global retail ambitions as it looks to transition to focus on the UK market for business, consumer, and wholesale customers, and to evolve its international business base around its Global Fabric Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform.
Radianz, originally formed in 2000 as a joint venture between Reuters and Equant (the then-brand of France Telecom/Orange global business services), was sold to BT in 2005 for $175 million as part of the UK incumbent’s then ambitious global growth strategy. The company is reported to have current annual revenues of GBP142 million.
The move makes perfect sense both parties. For TNS it complements its existing core business of IaaS-based financial transactions for point-of-sale (POS) terminals, ATMs, and various other payment systems, and for BT as it continues to refocus its business towards being UK only. BT has not released details on Radianz’s revenues or profitability, but it is clear that Radianz is no longer a core proposition and does not obviously fit inside the new BT International’s stated go-to-market strategy. The deal also releases further valuable capital for BT Group to invest in UK infrastructure and deal with other corporate challenges facing the provider.
Outside the UK, BT now only has its BT International division which essentially operates as an arm’s-length business unit. BT is in the process of figuring out how best to use its BT Fabric proposition to realize some return on its investment in what is largely regarded as a cutting-edge international NaaS platform. To date, the asset shedding has been more decisive and clearer than the future of BT International – but that must surely come soon.
The move also underlines the changing nature of telecoms service provider global strategies. Many are withdrawing in part or in whole, or focusing on niche markets where they have a clear advantage (e.g., T-Systems). Others continue to look to serve multinational and enterprise clients across borders with both connectivity and value-added services like cybersecurity (e.g., Orange Business and Telefónica). Then you have the likes of NTT DATA, looking to offer the full stack from telecoms and data center infrastructure to systems integration. The main point is that service providers are choosing their strategic focus and looking deliver on it.
Summary Bullets:
During this season of cloud platform conferences, rivals are vying to own the headlines and do battle in the cloud wars through their latest campaigns and strategies involving AI agents.
2024’s spring/summer conferences led with GenAI innovations–2025’s with agentic AI. AI assistants and copilots have transformed into tools used to create customized agents, unleashing claims of new capabilities for streamlining integrations with workflows, speeding the application development lifecycle, and supporting multi-agent orchestration and management. Vendors are making bold promises based on agentic AI for its ability to eliminate a multitude of tasks mandated by humans and taking workflow automations to new heights.
AI agents, which can autonomously complete tasks on behalf of users leveraging data from sources external to the AI model, are accelerating the transition towards a more disruptive phase of GenAI. Enhanced memory capabilities enable the AI agents to develop a greater sense of context, including the capacity for “planning.” Agents can connect to other systems through APIs, taking actions rather than just returning information or generating content.
Recap of the latest AI agent events:
Cloud platform providers are strategically highlighting their most salient strengths. These range from the breadth of their cloud stack offerings to mature serverless computing solutions to access to massive developer communities via popular Copilot tools and Marketplaces. Yet all are focused on gaining mind share amidst heated campaigns of not only traditional platform rivals, but an increasingly crowded ecosystem of new platform and digital services providers (in the form of infrastructure providers) vying to catch the enterprise developer’s attention.
Recent vendor announcements are aiming to strike a chord among over-taxed enterprise IT operations teams, with claims of easing operational provisioning complexities involved with moving modern apps into production. Use cases supporting these claims remain scarce, and details to help prove new streamlined and low-code methods, particular around AI agent orchestration, are still vague in some cases. Enterprises should remain vigilant in seeking out technology partners providing a deep understanding of an evolving technology which comes with a lot of promises.
Summary Bullets:
Earlier this month Zoom continued its steady drumbeat of enhancements to the Zoom Workplace platform with the latest round of new features. As with previous rounds, the new capabilities enable users to be more productive by saving time during their workday. However, the real headline is that the features are emblematic of the advent of agentic AI and the rise of Zoom as a competitor.
All the new features add value, but two are especially worth noting. With the Custom AI Companion add-on, AI Companion can attend meetings on a user’s behalf held on platforms from three of Zoom’s biggest rivals – Microsoft, Google, and coming soon, Cisco – and automatically transcribe, summarize, and deliver actionable follow-ups. Also with the add-on, users can connect to 16 third-party apps to complete tasks without ever leaving Zoom. For example, resolving customer support tickets with Zendesk and ServiceNow; updating project statuses, assigning tasks, and setting deadlines with Asana and Jira; and expediting recruiting, interviews, and onboarding with Workday.
A common thread running through the announced features is the latest phase of AI – agentic AI. Agentic AI stretches beyond generating content, featuring agents that perform tasks on users’ behalf. Agentic AI can act autonomously, make decisions, and take action without human intervention. It can adjust its approach based upon new information or changing circumstances. Zoom and each of its competitors are leveraging agentic AI in some shape or form.
Most significantly, the new features symbolize a profound metamorphosis taking place at Zoom. After its video meetings capability became renowned virtually overnight in the dark, nascent days of the pandemic, Zoom ignited a steady evolution of its platform. With the October 2023 introduction of Zoom AI Companion, that evolution took a sharp trajectory upward and morphed into a full-blown renaissance marked by the introduction of GenAI features. With the implementation of agentic AI capabilities – both those recently and newly introduced – Zoom has entered yet another chapter. Now, Zoom has taken an important step in that chapter with the integrations between competitor platforms and roster of third-party apps.
Zoom is converting the Workplace platform from an island of collaboration into a centralized hub connecting with external tools. With a critical mass of functionality available from within Zoom, Zoom creates much stickier relationships with users and enables them to get work accomplished much more rapidly. However, there are disadvantages to having extended functionality under one roof.
Within the last few years, Zoom experienced a security incident which made headlines, labeled ‘Zoom bombing.’ The company promptly restored trust, resolving the problem quickly and communicating to the public what types of security measures it had in place. Today, with Zoom Workplace linking into other tools, the issue of security becomes top of mind again. Zoom needs to resurrect the strong security message it previously drafted and remind users what safeguards are in place to reduce the chance of a major breach.
The rapid accumulation of features on the platform over an abbreviated period has resulted in a mosaic of capabilities. Zoom needs to craft a clear ‘identity’ for its suite of tools and send an unambiguous positioning message to the market. Cisco provides a good lead for Zoom to follow. In communicating what its Webex Suite stands for Cisco has erected three pillars: hybrid work, customer experience, and workspaces. Zoom needs to decide what its pillars are and mold a message accordingly.
By continuing to regularly augment the platform while drafting strong messaging regarding security and market positioning, Zoom will be poised to continue its ascent.
Summary Bullets:
• Various new capabilities in cloud migration, AI, and agentic AI that are aligned with business needs in APAC.
• This shows strong momentum, but there are a few considerations for AWS to strengthen its position in the region.
In a recent briefing with analysts in APAC, AWS shared its key launches in H1 2025. In line with the market direction, most new services and features are around AI. Cloud adoption is growing while AI is evolving rapidly in the region. The focus has shifted from LLMs and use case creations to efficient deployments and advanced automation. For example, using the right model (third-party, custom model, model distillation, fine-tuning, and SLM) and agentic AI (multi-agent applications and agent development, including support for third-party agents and open-source agent SDK). The new capabilities are crucial for AWS to address the growing customer needs. Businesses have higher awareness of AI and are beginning to feel the push to adopt the technology to keep up with user demands and gain a competitive edge. The new capabilities are also crucial for AWS to retain its market position and to respond to competitors.
Cloud migration: AWS launched Amazon Elastic VMware Service (EVS) to simplify migration to the AWS’ environment (including AWS Outposts). While AWS’ support for VMware workloads is not new, Amazon EVS enables enterprises to retain VCF architecture (e.g., SDDC manager, vSphere, vSAN, and NSX) while providing deployment flexibility (e.g., self-manage or partners’ managed services and pay-per-use or bring-your-own-subscription models). Besides, AWS also launched AWS Transform, an agentic AI service (in both web-based and IDE), to accelerate VMware migration to EC2. The agent is designed to analyze workloads, dependencies, and readiness; convert VMware networking configurations to AWS; generate plans; and user validation (human in the loop). This can address the growing cloud migration in the region, but also minimize challenges such as enterprises’ integration, vendor lock-in, security, scalability, licensing and costs, and skill gap. Besides, with cloud-native environments, it can also future-proof enterprise workloads through options to refactor, replatform, and even repatriate the applications, which enables businesses to move away from VMware. AWS Transform is also available for mainframe and .NET application modernization.
Agentic AI: Apart from AWS Transform, there are several other new features highlighted by the vendor. AWS introduced Amazon Bedrock Agents by choosing the right models and data to execute specific tasks. The vendor has also added multi-agent collaboration as part of its Amazon Bedrock capabilities to enable management of multiple agents to address complex workflows. AWS is increasingly promoting open-source by adding support for (1) Strands Agent, an open-source agent SDK, and (2) Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard for integration across agents as well as data sources and tools. This provides wider flexibility for enterprises to deploy agentic AI, from specialized agents (Amazon Q), to fully managed agents (Amazon Bedrock) and DIY (open-source). This is crucial for enterprises to achieve greater efficiency and scalability, especially when they have implemented multiple agents from various providers for different business processes. Besides, Amazon Q can index data from various third-party sources including Salesforce, Zoom, Google, and Microsoft Exchange.
Other AI capabilities: There are also many other new features and capabilities of Amazon Bedrock including latency-optimized inference, model distillation, and intelligent prompt routing for model optimization, as well as support for new third-party models such as Deepseek, TwelveLabs, and Poolside. Another interesting new capability of Amazon Bedrock is cross-region inference which distributes its GPU capacity within a geographical region. This can provide cost-efficient solutions for enterprises who are developing AI applications that are not latency-sensitive nor bound by data sovereignty requirements. For Amazon Nova (its in-house models), the vendor highlighted Amazon Nova Sonic, a speech-to-speech model that provides higher performance (faster and more accurate) compared to the traditional approach (speech-text-model-text-speech again). It also introduced Amazon Nova Act, a model that allows a human interface (e.g., selecting an option on a web interface).
Conclusion: The new capabilities show AWS’ strong momentum in the rapidly evolving cloud and AI markets. AWS has also demonstrated various customer references with the new capabilities, across multiple industries. However, competitors are also moving at a similar pace. There are still some areas for consideration for AWS to further drive its position in the market. This includes showcasing wider references in APAC, supporting broader AI service availability in new regions in Asia, and AI edge (e.g., Outposts deployment).
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