alt.hn

7/5/2026 at 9:58:20 PM

New Microsoft 365 pricing live, some products up by 42% due to AI

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/05/microsoft-365-just-got-a-price-hike-over-continuous-innovation-but-copilot-is-the-ai-tax-on-businesses/

by ninko

7/5/2026 at 10:13:07 PM

If AI is so great, these price rises will pay for themselves many times over.....

Have any HNer's experienced or observed any productivity increases, or even any utility increases from co pilot?

by chairmansteve

7/6/2026 at 12:42:41 AM

Had a clueless business analyst get Copilot to write a bunch of stories for an epic, then when she had a meeting with me (and three other people!) to go through the stories I had to tell them that 90% of what they had done was wrong.

If they'd come to me from the outset I could have told them the one story title and handful of acceptance criteria that was required but instead we wasted 5 person hours and whatever Copilot costs.

by jamesfinlayson

7/6/2026 at 1:20:57 AM

Without context it reads like you work in a publisher that publishes fiction...

by netsharc

7/6/2026 at 2:00:45 AM

I thought the same. Business lingo has really jumped the shark. "story" is already stupid enough, but "epic"? Seriously? :-D

by spacechild1

7/6/2026 at 2:05:01 AM

I assumed this was standard terminology for Jira? It's been the same for me at two completely different tech companies.

by jamesfinlayson

7/6/2026 at 2:13:59 AM

It might be standard terminology but to outsiders like me it sounds like an over-the-top parody of corporate speak.

by spacechild1

7/6/2026 at 3:29:40 AM

I always hoped we could make "cinematic universe" for really enormous refactorings.

by hakfoo

7/6/2026 at 3:42:38 AM

I don't disagree - I worked on a task management system many years ago and task and subtask always made a lot more sense than story and task. And epic should just be project.

by jamesfinlayson

7/6/2026 at 5:30:33 AM

It's the brittle systems that try and force a peg in a hole regardless of size or shape.

I've worked with customers who stories worked well because the concept is just to talk through use-cases. Others have been involved in building software previously and it's overkill.

Current corpo job uses the phrase stories, but refuses to get involved with any planning or spec building so task and subtask would make more sense, but subtasks aren't visible on the board and we aren't allowed to update it.

We also aren't allowed to move a task back, so every time someone accidentally moves the wrong task we have to cancel it and recreate it. Such a pain.

by happymellon

7/6/2026 at 3:08:20 AM

[dead]

by mlvljr

7/5/2026 at 11:53:44 PM

Probably worse productivity because now I have to read paragraphs of emails that could have been sentences.

by itchingsphynx

7/6/2026 at 11:26:50 AM

It’s pure gold for contractors trying to snow clients. The people who used to struggle to produce a good looking document can now quickly produce something without visible tells that they have no idea what they’re talking about, even though they still have no idea.

by acdha

7/5/2026 at 10:45:55 PM

We've lost customers over the increased price.

by bigbuppo

7/6/2026 at 1:35:22 AM

Copilot actually can search outlook emails on Mac. This is the greatest achievement of any AI.

by bombcar

7/6/2026 at 5:51:13 AM

Sarcasm? The new Mac outlook also stores each email as a separate plain text tarball of HTML. It’s the greatest unintentional Microsoft feature ever because you can finally read all your email however you please

by fingerlocks

7/6/2026 at 4:40:23 AM

They do increase RAM and processor usage.

by hulitu

7/6/2026 at 3:42:07 AM

It makes no sense to use 365 anymore, there are so many other alternatives

by meszmate

7/6/2026 at 6:49:35 AM

Not if all parties require Office documents, and its collaboration features.

by pjmlp

7/6/2026 at 3:27:45 AM

Any word on 'A' (Education) licenses?

A1/A2/A3?

by HDBaseT

7/5/2026 at 9:58:20 PM

Microsoft is committed to delivering continuous innovation and value through Microsoft 365. Over the past several years, we’ve invested deeply in security, compliance, productivity, AI, and IT management— helping organizations stay productive, secure, and competitive in a rapidly evolving landscape. This change reflects the significant innovation delivered over the past several years and the added value customers will gain with new additions to the suites, including major advancements in AI (ex. Copilot Chat, Copilot Chat Analytics), security (ex. Microsoft Defender for Office P1), and IT management (ex. Intune Suite).

by ninko

7/6/2026 at 12:14:16 AM

You worded that as if you speak for Microsoft, but your account is 2 days old and this is your first comment, which makes me suspect you are a karma-farming bot.

by craftkiller

7/6/2026 at 1:17:08 AM

I pasted directly from MS's site: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/2026-m365-pac...

Sorry if my comment was not clear, but my commment has an em dash because MS used one, and they likely use Copilot to write the blog :D

by ninko

7/6/2026 at 2:08:17 AM

That quote is really funny because it reads like a parody.

Next time just use quotation marks and add a link to the source.

by spacechild1

7/6/2026 at 6:34:02 AM

It is a parody. Inovation, value, security - things which Microsoft strugles to deliver since 30 years.

by hulitu

7/5/2026 at 9:58:56 PM

so a long way of saying: we need to fund our AI.

by jinxmeta

7/6/2026 at 1:54:43 AM

War chest emptying, must raise taxes.

by RetroTechie

7/5/2026 at 10:30:04 PM

Now, instead of incremental UI changes, we can parade an infinite array of slop features to justify lifetime subscriptions by businesses, because, what are they going to do, learn something else?

by cyanydeez

7/5/2026 at 10:54:27 PM

No one who takes their job seriously uses Copilot anything.

by diego_sandoval

7/6/2026 at 12:01:55 AM

hey AI, your em dash is showing.

by slimshade777

7/6/2026 at 1:17:20 AM

I pasted directly from MS's site: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/2026-m365-pac...

Sorry if my comment was not clear, but my commment has an em dash because MS used one, and they likely use Copilot to write the blog :D

by ninko

7/6/2026 at 6:02:09 PM

It is customary to start a quoted paragraph (e. blockquote) with a greater then symbol (>) e.g.:

> This is a quoted paragraph

It is then expected that you share some insights or opinions on the paragraph you quoted. Just pasting a quote without any context nor markers makes it look you these are your own words.

by runarberg