Pentagon gives Dell a $9.7bn contract to consolidate Microsoft licences across the military
Pentagon gives Dell a $9.7bn contract to consolidate Microsoft licences across the military

The five-year deal consolidates scattered Microsoft 365 and cloud subscriptions for the Defense Department, intelligence community and Coast Guard. Dell, not Microsoft, is the prime contractor. The US Department of Defense has awarded Dell a five-year,…

South Africa Has AI Leverage. Its Draft Policy Leaves It Unused
South Africa Has AI Leverage. Its Draft Policy Leaves It Unused

This article is adapted by the author with permission from Tech Policy Press. Read the original article.South Africa is not just another developing country struggling to govern artificial intelligence (AI); it is the exception with leverage, and the w…

Only 3.3 per cent of users pay for Copilot, so Microsoft is finally making it optional
Only 3.3 per cent of users pay for Copilot, so Microsoft is finally making it optional

Microsoft has added the ability to fully remove the Copilot app from Windows 11. The change arrived in the April 2026 update and applies to both enterprise administrators using Group Policy and regular users who can now uninstall it through Settings li…

Copilot is getting a sidebar treatment for Windows 11, just like Gemini in Chrome

Copilot is getting a dockable sidebar in Windows 11 that works similarly to Gemini in Chrome, an approach that Microsoft already tried and scrapped.

Microsoft’s quiet Claude Code retreat and the real cost of enterprise AI
Microsoft’s quiet Claude Code retreat and the real cost of enterprise AI

In December of last year, Microsoft told thousands of its engineers, product managers and designers that they could use Claude Code, Anthropic’s command-line coding agent, on the company dime. By spring, the tool had spread well beyond engineering: int…

HP pushed a critical BIOS update through Windows Update. It bricked its most expensive laptops.
HP pushed a critical BIOS update through Windows Update. It bricked its most expensive laptops.

HP customers are reporting that BIOS updates pushed through Windows Update are rendering premium laptops unbootable. The affected devices include the ZBook Ultra G1a, a mobile workstation that costs upwards of £4,000, and the EliteBook X G1a. The updat…

Google, Meta and Microsoft are getting worker data from sneaky bossware tools, report says

The software tracking your work hours may also be feeding data to Big Tech. A new Northeastern study shows how bossware is becoming a wider privacy problem.

Microsoft will let users disable the floating Copilot button in the Office app

Microsoft is rolling out an Office update in the last week of May 2026 that lets users move the floating Copilot button out of their documents and back to the ribbon.

Microsoft’s consumer marketing chief to leave next year
Microsoft’s consumer marketing chief to leave next year

Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, is leaving the company after 35 years. Mehdi announced his departure in an internal memo on Thursday, noting that he will leave Microsoft next year. He will remain focused on marketing for Windows, Copilot for consumers and the Microsoft 365 consumer business until […]

Microsoft is letting Office users remove an annoying Copilot button
Microsoft is letting Office users remove an annoying Copilot button

Microsoft is rolling out Office app updates next week that allow users to disable a floating Copilot button. The button appeared in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in recent weeks, and floats above the bottom right-hand section of spreadsheets or documents. It has angered many Excel users in particular, because it obstructs cells and you can’t […]