Every Microsoft licence a UAE business runs, and plain answers on what changed in 2026, what the traps are, and what you can stop paying for.
Microsoft PartnerVerify on Microsoft Marketplace →Five ranges cover almost everything a UAE business runs. The trap in each one is listed underneath, because that is the part nobody tells you until the invoice arrives.
Basic, Standard, Premium and Apps for business.
Capped at 300 users across the whole Business family — the limit that catches growing companies.
Read the detail →E3, E5 and the new E7 Frontier Suite.
No seat cap. E7 launched in May 2026 bundling E5, Copilot, Agent 365 and Entra Suite.
Read the detail →F1 and F3 for staff who do not sit at a desk.
F1 has no mailbox rights at all. That single fact decides most F1-versus-F3 arguments.
Read the detail →Standard, Datacenter, Base CALs and RDS CALs.
Licensed by physical core with a 16-core minimum per server, whatever the box actually has.
Read the detail →Exchange Online, Visio, Teams, Copilot, Defender, Intune and Entra.
Often cheaper than moving everyone up a tier for one feature. Sometimes not. Worth the arithmetic.
Read the detail →If your renewal quote came in higher than last year, this is why. Microsoft raised list prices with effect from 1 July 2026, and ran a packaging change across the third quarter of the calendar year, completed by 1 August 2026. Customers were given 30 days’ notice in the Message Center of their own tenant.
The price rise applies to Office 365 E3 and E5, Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard and Apps for business, Microsoft 365 F1 and F3, Enterprise Mobility and Security E3 and E5, Windows E3 and E5, and Entra ID P1 and P2. For reference, Microsoft’s published list price for Microsoft 365 E3 moved from 36 to 39 US dollars per user per month, and E5 from 57 to 60.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is not named on Microsoft’s list of affected plans. Worth knowing before you accept a renewal quote that raises it.
The rise came with additions to the qualifying suites rather than nothing at all — Defender for Office 365 Plan 1, Intune Remote Help, Intune Advanced Analytics, Intune Plan 2, Intune Privilege Management and Microsoft Cloud PKI, with Security Copilot for E5 customers within capacity limits. Some of those you may already be buying separately. That is the first thing to check.
Licensing rules on this page were checked against Microsoft’s own documentation in September 2026. Microsoft changes plan contents regularly — if you are reading this much later, ask us to confirm before you commit to a term.
Most of the money wasted on Microsoft licensing in this market is not wasted on the wrong price. It is wasted on the wrong plan, bought for a headcount that changed, or on two subscriptions that do the same job.
The 2026 packaging change pushed several security and device-management tools into the suites. If you also hold standalone Intune Plan 2 or Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 subscriptions, you may now be paying for the same capability twice. Send us your licence list and we will check it against what your suite covers.
The Microsoft 365 Business family — Basic, Standard, Premium and Apps for business — is limited to 300 users in total across all of them combined, not 300 of each. Growing companies hit this without warning. The Business page covers what to do about it.
Frontline F1 carries no Exchange mailbox rights at all — it has an Exchange Kiosk entitlement for the Teams calendar only. If your warehouse staff need to receive email, F1 is the wrong licence however attractive the price looks. Full F1 versus F3 comparison.
Every server needs at least 16 core licences even if it only has 8 cores, and at least 8 per physical processor. And the server licence does not include the right for anyone to connect — that is a separate CAL, per user or per device. How the core and CAL maths works.
Monthly billing costs more per seat but lets you reduce the count at any time. Annual is cheaper but locks the number for the term. For a company hiring quickly or running seasonal staff, the cheaper unit price is not always the cheaper year.
Your Microsoft tenant should be registered to your organisation with your own global administrator, whoever supplies the licences. If a provider holds the only admin account, moving away from them later becomes their decision rather than yours. Ask the question before you buy, of us or of anybody else.
Proto Link IT Solutions is listed as a Microsoft partner on Microsoft’s own marketplace. That listing is public: see our profile on Microsoft Marketplace. We would rather you verified it in one click than took a badge on a website at face value.
What it means in practice is that licences are bought through the proper channel and registered to your own tenant, rather than sourced as keys from a grey market that leaves you unlicensed at the next audit. If a price you have been quoted elsewhere looks impossible, that is usually why.
You send a headcount and a rough description of who does what — how many are at desks, how many are on the floor or on site, whether anyone needs advanced compliance. We come back with a plan mix and a price against your company LPO, with a VAT tax invoice under TRN 105539797800003.
Licences are registered to your own tenant, with your own global administrator account. Migration from whatever you are on now — another provider, a Google workspace, or nothing at all — is included rather than quoted as a project.
If the honest answer is that you are already on the right plan and should do nothing, we will tell you that too. It costs us one sale and earns the next three.
Proto Link IT Solutions supplies Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licences across Dubai and the UAE, from a single seat to a full enterprise rollout, against a company LPO with a VAT tax invoice. Send your headcount and we come back with the plan mix and a price, usually the same working day.
Microsoft raised list prices with effect from 1 July 2026 across most Office 365 and Microsoft 365 enterprise, business and frontline plans, alongside a packaging change completed by 1 August 2026. Business Premium is not named on Microsoft's list of affected plans, so if your Premium renewal rose it is worth asking why.
Under 300 users and mostly desk-based, the Business family is usually the sensible range. Over 300 users, or needing advanced compliance and identity, you are into Enterprise. Staff who do not sit at a desk are often better on Frontline. Tell us the headcount and roles and we will map it rather than quote you the largest plan.
Usually yes. Send the current licence list and renewal dates and we will tell you what can transfer, when, and whether it is worth doing before or after your term ends.
From one seat upward. There is no minimum.
Every licence we supply is genuine, registered to your own organisation, and activated properly. Not resold keys of unclear origin.
Yes. Tenant setup, mailbox and file migration, user onboarding and activation are included at no extra charge on licences bought from us.
Yes, including Standard and Datacenter core packs, Base CALs and RDS CALs. Send the processor and core count of the server along with how many people or devices connect to it, and we will work out what you actually need.
Tenant setup, mailbox and file migration, user onboarding and activation are included at no extra charge on Microsoft licences bought from Proto Link. You pay for the licences, not for the project around them.
Send us your headcount and what your team actually needs. We will come back with the right plan mix and a price — usually the same working day.