EPC Group
Oct 13, 2026: Office LTSC 2021 EOS Meets Windows 10 ESU Year 2
Office LTSC 2021 loses support Oct 13, 2026 — the day Windows 10 ESU Year 1 ends and Year 2 doubles to $122/device. The four device paths and a three-week triage plan.
Latest from EPC Group
The newest articles across the whole blog, newest first — the same order as the RSS feed.
EPC Group
Copilot Usage-Based Billing Defaults On: Spending-Policy Playbook
MC1476200 turns usage-based billing on by default for new Copilot Business purchases (Oct 19 direct, Nov 2 CSP). What is metered and the 12 controls to set first.
EPC Group
Power Automate Decision Fabric: Multi-Model AI
Model-agnostic AI inside Power Automate and Power Apps — routed AI steps, an AI Consensus Gate for contested decisions, human approval on every high-stakes action, and an auditable record of why a flow did what it did.
EPC Group
SharePoint AI Knowledge Mesh: Multi-Model Retrieval
Governed multi-model retrieval across SharePoint and Microsoft 365 — Copilot natively, plus Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini through a permission-aware integration layer that never widens what a user may already see.
EPC Group
Choosing a BI Consulting Partner: G2 Streaks
Award logos are easy to collect. Here is how to actually read G2 data when evaluating business intelligence consultants — grids, review recency, streak length — and what consecutive Leader quarters signal.
EPC Group
Azure vs AWS for Microsoft-Anchored Enterprises
Four-dimension framework: Microsoft Azure vs AWS in Microsoft-anchored enterprises. Integration depth, AI surface, economics, operator skills.
EPC Group
Power Platform vs OutSystems, Mendix, Salesforce
A four-dimension framework comparing Power Platform, OutSystems, Mendix and Salesforce Platform for the 2026 enterprise low-code platform decision.
EPC Group
Microsoft Defender XDR vs CrowdStrike Falcon
Four-dimension decision framework: Microsoft Defender XDR vs CrowdStrike Falcon. Microsoft integration, AI investigation, economics, SOC skills.
EPC Group
Microsoft Entra ID vs Okta for Enterprise
Microsoft Entra ID vs Okta for enterprise identity: Conditional Access, SSO, MFA, PIM, lifecycle workflows, and how each integrates with M365 and Azure.
Featured Articles
⭐ Featured
AI Governance
Silent AI Is Dead: What Six Insurance Carriers Told Me About Your 2026 Renewal
"Silent AI" ended January 1, 2026, when ISO generative-AI exclusions (CG 40 47/48) went live. Here is what six insurance carriers told me they now require before they will renew AI-touching coverage — and the four court cases driving it.
Errin O'Connor
Founder & Chief AI Architect
July 1, 2026
9 min read
Read Full Article
⭐ Featured
Power BI
Microsoft Fabric ROI for the CIO: Real F-SKU Costs After Build 2026
Build 2026 reshaped Fabric's TCO math. Honest F-SKU costs vs Power BI Premium, real payback periods from 12 client engagements, and the hidden cost lines Microsoft's calculator omits.
Errin O'Connor
Founder & Chief AI Architect
June 9, 2026
9 min read
Read Full Article
⭐ Featured
AI Governance
Microsoft Build 2026 for the Board: 5 Strategic Decisions for CIOs
A CIO board-prep framework for Build 2026 with the 5 strategic decisions that must land in Q3-Q4 2026: platform standardization, Agent 365, governance posture, compute budget, ROI measurement.
Errin O'Connor
Founder & Chief AI Architect
June 9, 2026
10 min read
Read Full Article
Latest Articles
Azure
Build 2026 for Azure Architects: Databases, Agents, Fabric, and the New AI Application Stack
Build 2026 for Azure architects: HorizonDB, Cosmos DB enhancements, the Foundry agentic app stack, and what to architect around when every workload becomes an agent endpoint. EPC Group walks through the new reference architecture and where governance lives.
Errin O'Connor
June 7, 2026
Data Analytics
Operations Agents in Microsoft Fabric: The Next Step Beyond Static Dashboards
Operations agents in Microsoft Fabric reached GA at Build 2026. They watch your pipelines, capacities, and Power BI workspaces, and act when SLOs slip. EPC Group lays out the operations-agent architecture and how it turns Fabric and Power BI into a self-healing analytics estate.
Errin O'Connor
June 6, 2026
AEO & SEO
Web IQ and AI Search: Why AEO and Live Web Grounding Are Now Enterprise Requirements
Web IQ inside Foundry IQ changes how AI search agents read public web content. EPC Group covers Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and the schema + content moves that get your brand cited by Copilot, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini in 2026.
Errin O'Connor
June 6, 2026
AI Governance
Why Agentic AI Requires Entra, Purview, Defender, and Real Governance Before It Scales
Agent 365 went GA May 1. The SDK shipped at Build. MXC ties Entra, Purview, and Defender to every agent. EPC Group walks through the agentic governance stack and how the Governed AI on Microsoft framework maps to it, control by control.
Errin O'Connor
June 5, 2026
Microsoft Copilot
Copilot Is No Longer Just Chat: Build 2026 Shows the Rise of Cowork, Agents, and Enterprise Automation
Agent Mode is now the Microsoft 365 Copilot default. Cowork ships, Scout is live in Frontier, and the Copilot Super App is "coming this summer." EPC Group covers what is shipping, what is teased, and the adoption + governance motion that turns it into ROI.
Errin O'Connor
June 5, 2026
AI & Innovation
Windows Becomes a Local AI Platform: What Build 2026 Means for Secure Enterprise AI Development
The RTX Spark superchip and DGX Spark redefine local AI for Windows. Aion runs on-device, MAI runs in Foundry, and MXC ties them together. EPC Group lays out the secure-AI-dev architecture for healthcare, finance, and government workloads that cannot leave the boundary.
Errin O'Connor
June 5, 2026
AI & Innovation
Microsoft's New MAI Models: Why Model Diversity Matters for Enterprise AI Strategy
Microsoft introduced the MAI family — seven new in-house cloud models including MAI-Thinking-1 and MAI-Code-1-Flash. EPC Group decodes what owning a frontier reasoning model means for enterprises, and how to govern a multi-model future without your CRM giving four different answers.
Errin O'Connor
June 4, 2026
AI & Innovation
Microsoft Foundry at Build 2026: From AI Agent Demos to Production-Ready Enterprise Systems
Microsoft Foundry is the multi-model control plane Microsoft just confirmed with OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, DeepSeek, and MAI all on one platform. EPC Group reads the Foundry IQ, ACS, and ASSERT trust stack — and what governance to build around agents before they go to production.
Errin O'Connor
June 4, 2026
Data Analytics
Microsoft Fabric IQ and Power BI: Why Semantic Models Are Becoming the Brain of AI Agents
Fabric IQ is GA. Semantic models, certified ontologies, and operations agents change how analytics works in 2026. EPC Group, founding member of the Power BI Beta Team, lays out the semantic-model certification work that has to happen before AI grounds on your data.
Errin O'Connor
June 4, 2026Stay Updated with Microsoft Insights
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Microsoft Consulting Insights and Best Practices
TL;DR — EPC Group publishes 200+ expert guides on Power BI, SharePoint, Azure, Microsoft 365, and AI governance. Our consultants have enterprise Microsoft experience since 1997 and 11,000+ engagements. Browse the latest articles below.
Key facts
- 200+ expert guides published across Microsoft cloud topics
- Enterprise Microsoft consulting experience since 1997
- 11,000+ enterprise engagements across all industries
- Microsoft Solutions Partner with core designations — a credential held by fewer than 200 partners globally
- Gold Partner status held 2000–2022 — the oldest continuous Gold Partner in North America
- Founder & Chief AI Architect Errin O'Connor: 4× bestselling author, MVP 2002–2003
About EPC Group's blog
EPC Group is a Houston-based Microsoft consulting firm founded in 1997. Our blog covers practical guidance for enterprise Microsoft deployments — not vendor marketing. Topics include Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, SharePoint governance and migration, Azure cloud services, Microsoft 365 security, AI governance frameworks, and Copilot deployment.
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