Technology
Three stories a day on the technology that changes how businesses run, chosen for what they mean rather than how loud they are.
Technology at The First Click is not a gadget page. Each weekday at 11 we choose three stories for the reader who has to decide something because of them: the chief technology officer sizing a refresh, the founder reading a funding round for what it says about the market, the security lead who needs to know which assumption just expired. The beats are AI and machine learning, enterprise software, cybersecurity, semiconductors, and startups and funding. Every story is summarised in our own words and links to the publisher who reported it. Beneath the day’s lead sits an editor’s note: why we chose it over the alternatives, and what to watch next. On Fridays the funniest of the week gathers in pubLOL, and every second Sunday a Ctrl+Shift column takes one technology question at length.
Every story we have kept in Technology, newest first. Headlines link to the publisher; the tags below narrow the list.
Exchange Web Services enters the final stretch before Microsoft pulls access
Microsoft began blocking EWS access for Exchange Online tenants on October 1; administrators can allow-list approved apps only until the API's permanent shutdown on April 1, 2027, so integrations should migrate to Microsoft Graph.
Microsoft tells nonprofits their deleted M365 data isn't coming back
Microsoft confirmed it accidentally deleted nonprofit customers' Microsoft 365 data before retention periods expired, following discontinuation of its Business Premium grant program in 2025, and said the lost data cannot be recovered or even fully identified.
Editor's noteMicrosoft's data loss is a consequence of its own grant program's abrupt end. Watch the number of nonprofits that now pay for M365 subscriptions, as the financial impact of this data loss will be a more telling metric than the lost data itself.
Register reader hit with surprise bill after Microsoft portals disagreed
A startup lost $16,000 after Microsoft's startup-credits portal kept showing a healthy balance while a separate Azure sponsorship portal had already zeroed it out, exposing a backend sync failure between the two systems.
Our latest integrations embed Monte Carlo further into your data and AI ecosystem
Data observability platform Monte Carlo added integrations with Microsoft Teams, Databricks, Salesforce Data Cloud and AWS Step Functions, plus a Model Context Protocol feature for reviewing agent traces in editors.
VMware defends ending downloads of SDK that helps VM backups– or migrations to rivals
VMware removed public downloads of its VDDK toolkit, arguing it was licensed only for backups, blocking rivals such as Nutanix and Red Hat from using it to help customers migrate off VMware.
Editor's noteLicensing terms are a competitive weapon and this is the week that stopped being subtext. Removing the toolkit rivals used to move customers off VMware is defended as enforcement of what the licence always said, which may be true and still be the point.
Word 97's ghost in the machine: The crash that vanished the moment anyone looked at it
Veteran Microsoft engineer recounted a notorious Word 97 bug that crashed reliably in testing yet disappeared whenever engineers attached a debugger. The culprit ultimately turned out to be a CPU hardware erratum, not Word itself.
Microsoft slaps a fresh coat of AI paint on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap
Microsoft has renamed the Microsoft 365 Roadmap to the AI at Work Roadmap, consolidating updates for Microsoft 365, Copilot, agents, and related AI services while shifting to a continuous feature-publication model.
Why IT leaders should unpack AI before they buy
IT leaders should define what they mean by AI before making investments, distinguishing among technologies such as LLMs, agentic systems, and automation, then aligning purchases with specific operational problems and business goals.
Editor's noteBuying advice rarely earns a lead. This does because it names the actual failure: AI is three or four different technologies on one purchase order, and a business case written against the word rather than the capability cannot be evaluated by anyone, including the person who signed it.
Excel's Copilot function is headed for the Recycle Bin
Microsoft will retire Excel’s experimental COPILOT() worksheet function on September 14, 2026, abandoning plans for a broader rollout and steering users toward the Copilot side pane for AI-assisted spreadsheet tasks.
What’s New in PyCharm 2026.2.1
PyCharm 2026.2.1 adds AI agent support for Jupyter notebooks and environment management, introduces marimo notebook support, redesigns the Python Packages tool window, and improves type checking clarity.
