Jan 25, 2017 04:55 AM EST By Dan Archer, UniversityHerald Reporter

Microsoft this week announced few amazing news about the company's cloud productivity app, Microsoft Office 365. The great news is said to provide even more value to customers' Microsoft Office 365 subscription.

Office 365 Gets A New Look
Microsoft this week announced the general availability of the new Office 365 Admin Center. The new Office 365 platform will replace the old-style Office 365 Admin Center, starting January 31, 2017. The new Office 365 Admin Center will soon be the only option for It admins to manage tenants.

According to Petri, the old-style Office 365 Admin Center is the second version. The first version, which was introduced in June 2011, was based on the current look and feel of 2010-generation Office server.

The new Office 365 Admin Center boasts features a new look-and-feel, muck like the one used in the Microsoft Security and Compliance Center. In the new Admin Center, Data are now presented more logically and easier to access.

Office 365 Get Microsoft Azure AD (Active Directory) Access
According to Microsoft-focused publication RedmondMag, Microsoft is now offering Office 365 subscribers a free Azure AD subscription. This also means that Office 365 admins will now able to access Microsoft Azure AD to create and even manage user accounts.

For a starter, Azure Active Directory or Azure AD is the software company's multi-tenant cloud-based directory and identity management service that combines core directory services, advanced identity governance, and application access management.

For IT admins, Azure AD provides a rich, easy-to-use, standards-based platform that enables IT admins to deliver access control to their applications, based on centralized policy and rules.

Microsoft is not limiting this free Azure AD offer to Office 365 subscribers only. Microsoft is also extending the free Azure AD offer to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online subscribers and also to Enterprise Mobility Suite subscribers.

Microsoft also hints that the free Azure AD offer might be extended to other Microsoft services, but does not provide more detailed info about this.

Unfortunately, there's some limitation, the free Azure AD offer is only valid to those who have a paid Office 365 subscription.

Microsoft is only providing free access to Azure Active Directory service only and other Azure services such as virtual machines and databases are not included in this free Azure AD offer.

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