Microsoft license shuffle means Power Apps users could break the bank
- Reference: 1710534609
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/15/microsoft_power_apps_licensing/
- Source link:
A blog post from analyst [1]Directions on Microsoft stated this week that organizations building applications in the Power Apps environment would in some cases have to switch users from the Power Apps license to the Dynamics 365 Enterprise license at ten times the cost.
Andrew Snodgrass points out that under previous rules, users licensed with Power Apps subscriptions could access data in Dynamics 365 applications – a suite of enterprise apps from Microsoft including CRM, ERP, and HR – by reading data, so long as they did not modify data in "restricted" tables.
[2]
However, Microsoft's new [3]Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for March 2024 [PDF] links to a solution checker service under the heading [4]Verify License Compliance .
[5]
[6]
It appears to make changes to definitions of "restricted tables," which could increase licensing costs for organizations that have built Power Apps around Dynamics 365.
Snodgrass reckons the solution checker list of "restricted tables" adds several more tables that were not restricted before.
[7]
For example, Microsoft cites "restricted operations" to refer to processes such as generating an invoice that would have run on non-restricted tables but according to the new rules now require a full Dynamics 365 subscription.
[8]Developers beware, Microsoft's domain shakeup is coming soon
[9]Microsoft forges One Teams App To Rule Them All
[10]Microsoft decides it's done with Azure egress ransoms
[11]Microsoft Copilot for Security prepares for April liftoff
The "restricted controls" in the solution checker refers to embedded controls – used, for example, in forecasting – that if run in the Power Apps solution will require users to have a full Dynamics 365 subscription, Snodgrass said.
The cost could be significant to users, depending on how many Power Apps licenses they have and how many are affected. Dynamics 365 Team Member is $8 per user per month, Power Apps Premium is $20 per user per month, and Dynamics 365 CRM Enterprise licenses are $95 per user per month.
As an illustration, Snodgrass points out that 1,000 users with Power Apps subscriptions at $20 per month ($240,000 per year) are significantly less than 1,000 users with Dynamics 365 Enterprise licenses at $95 per month ($1.14 million per year).
"What I came away with was a feeling of disappointment. I was hoping the solution checker would be a step forward in helping customers understand what licenses they needed," said Snodgrass.
[12]
"Instead, it looks like Microsoft is using it as an opportunity to further limit Power Apps subscription rights and increase cost for customers who deployed Power Apps solutions in good faith," he concluded.
Snodgrass has asked Microsoft to clarify these points, as has The Register .
Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its associated community of low-code-built Power Apps have enjoyed popularity in the mid-market, finding a sweet spot between businesses requiring more powerful software than simple accounting packages and spreadsheets and global organizations that might need more complex and expensive enterprise applications from vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and Infor. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/blog/dynamics-365-rights-in-power-apps-subscriptions-changes-on-the-horizon/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZfTTBhFYancHB1hCMqq1-wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/6/7/96706B15-1CBE-47B7-AB9E-6BC31A377BBB/Dynamics%20365%20Licensing%20Guide%20March%202024.pdf
[4] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/sales/license-enforcement
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfTTBhFYancHB1hCMqq1-wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfTTBhFYancHB1hCMqq1-wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfTTBhFYancHB1hCMqq1-wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/microsoft_domain_shakeup/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/unified_teams_debuts/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/microsoft_ends_azure_egress_fees/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/microsoft_copilot_for_security_ready/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfTTBhFYancHB1hCMqq1-wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
At a previous job I was looking for a way to help automate routine data collection, and looked at the Power Apps as a possible solution. But, for the life of me, I couldn't find any real documentation on them. You either use whatever the SharePoint wizard things create, or fumble around in the dark until you chance across a light switch. Not that I give a gerbil's wet fart if it would have ended up costing that employer more, but suppose it's just as well. Now I know not to bother with those apps in the future.
Very generalised response ahoy
I know it's down to needs and use case, data volume, responsiveness etc. etc. but I implemented a data collection and dashboarding tool with Node-RED, InfluxDB and Grafana. Picking up data from sensors (low bandwidth MQTT), Webhooks, JSON formatted data streams, API calls and some Direct (IP) device probing.
It's not a very sophisticated stack but it did the job and avoided PowerApps completely.
Just agreeing with aerogems. I've just finished building a customer website in Power Pages (subset of Power Apps). It's clearly a work-in-progress from Microsoft, with barely any documentation, that is mostly either missing the important information or somehow out-of-date despite being new technology. In the short time I've been working on the project I've seen useful features disabled and new features appear without notification and warning messages stating that the only solution I could find would be deprecated soon. They are desperate to disable the "Classic View" option on various editors, which opens the familiar Dynamics CRM customisation tools. However the classic views tend to have critical functions that they haven't yet ported to the new interface - hence they disabled the classic views for 3 days last month but then it reappeared when enough customers complained. Of course they have crowbarred co-pilot into it and it constantly nags you to use AI to build your app, sadly it doesn't work and misinterprets your requests and hallucinates database table and field names. Power Apps could be amazing - a low-code/no-code way to rapidly build productivity apps around existing company data sources (including Excel spreadsheets). I could see the semi-technical bod in Finance (who never quite mastered VBA) absolutely loving this. It's just not there yet though. There aren't even any decent blogs, let alone stackoverflow answers.
I guess this might have happened at my workplace -- temporarily. We have a simple app for registering equpment usage, made with Power Apps. it's just starting to get used. The developer and her line manager got information that the cost would be, per person, multiple times the former cost because of the required database usage. Then the next day we got word that no, the licence costs would not rise. (At least not for now.)