Issue 01 · October 2026
The renewal season issue.
Most enterprise agreements renew between now and June. This first issue is about the three conversations worth having before yours lands — while you still have room to move.
01
The EA-to-MCA-E shift is now a primary conversation
Microsoft is steering most enterprise customers from the Enterprise Agreement toward the Microsoft Customer Agreement for Enterprise. Smaller customers from EA-to-CSP via the partner ecosystem. The MCA-E paperwork is simpler, but price protection, commitment terms and flexibility sit in different places — and some protections you assume you have may not carry over. If your account team raises it, treat it as a negotiation action, not an administrative change.
02
Copilot is being priced into renewals by default
Copilot licences are increasingly appearing in renewal proposals as an assumed line item rather than a separate decision. Before it rides along with the rest of your agreement, ask for it to be broken out with its own business case: who actually uses it, at what adoption, and what you'd pay if you said no this year.
03
Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC) deserve a fresh look
Consumption commitments set eighteen months ago rarely match what you actually use today. Over-committed means paying for capacity you won't touch; under-committed means missing discounts you've earned. An ongoing consumption review is ideal, but if a one-off activity, then six months before MACC is the single highest-value action your team can spend.
04
One question worth asking this month
"Which of our current licenses or Azure workloads would we choose again today, knowing what we now use?" The honest answer is usually the starting point for planning a better renewal.
Further reading
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