Microsoft News Roundup March 2024: compilation of Microsoft news and announcements you need for your small business.

Exchange Online emails arrested by SpamCop!

This is a new story unrelated to Microsoft and Google DKIM and DMARC changes. Because of the flood of spam generated by rogue @outlook.com email addresses, SpamCop now blocks all emails from Microsoft Exchange Online servers. You’ve probably seen a lot of spam messages from @outlook.com in the past few months most of them dodgy bitcoin scams.

If your clients or customers use an email service provider like @yahoo.com or uniserve.com, their service provider blocks your exchange online emails. You will get an undeliverable message such as 550 5.7.350 Remote server returned message detected as spam -> 550 Failure 550 Spamcop followed by an IP address of a Microsoft server.

There is nothing you can do but wait for Microsoft to clean up the spammy @outlook.com emails. Spamcop and Microsoft are working on the problem.

Publisher murder!

Microsoft announced the scheduled murder of the Publisher app earlier this month. Microsoft will kill Publisher as part of the Microsoft 365 suite in 2026. Microsoft missed the boat by not updating Publisher for current small office needs. Canva grabbed the market. Microsoft will now push its Canva clone, Microsoft Designer into the lineup. As usual you will have to purchase Designer as part of a bundle with other Office apps.

Given Microsoft’s neglect of Publisher and the bundle annoyance I recommend Publisher users check out Canva as a replacement. Excellent intro to Canva here.

Getting rid of Publisher in 2026 means the only true desktop software left will be Access. Microsoft expects businesses to fork over big bucks for PowerBI and PowerApps to replace Access databases.

Office 2021 standalone becomes Office 2024

Microsoft will continue with their standalone versions of a reduced Office suite. I don’t recommend these limited Office standalones for business as you can’t get security updates for them or apply business wide policies on them. There’s a marginal savings on them. Vendors like Dell and Lenovo offer them when purchasing new computers. Just say no.

Be aware that scammers offer versions of Office 2021 and Office 2024. If you do want to purchase Office standalone make sure you get it directly from Microsoft or computer manufacturer.

More details on Office 2024 here.

Microsoft News Roundup March 2024: all the news that’s fit to print.