Power-Bi Premium licensing changes to Microsoft Fabric

A reminder to prepare your license migration

We would like to remind you of the upcoming changes for your Power BI Premium environment and the associated licensing updates. Microsoft will retire the Power BI Premium licensing options on January 1, 2025. Customers should move to Microsoft Fabric, a new and enhanced platform that promises greater capabilities and flexibility. In this blog, we’ll explore the retirement of Power BI Premium, the introduction of Microsoft Fabric, and what this means for existing and new customers.

What is Microsoft Fabric?

Microsoft Fabric is a data platform designed to meet the diverse needs of modern businesses. It offers a unified experience, architecture, governance, compliance, and billing. With Fabric, organizations can leverage shared compute resources, simplified management, and enhanced performance capabilities.

Fabric capacities are the backbone of this platform, providing the computing power necessary to drive all Fabric experiences. These capacities offer flexibility in SKU size, pay-as-you-go billing options, and access to Azure-only features. Additionally, Fabric capacities are eligible for Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), making them a cost-effective choice for many organizations.

What is your impact?
The transition from Power BI Premium to Microsoft Fabric will have impact on customers, depending on their existing agreements and usage. Here are the most impactful actions to take: 

• Existing Customers who are currently using Power BI Premium per capacity can continue to do so until their next renewal date. After January 1, 2025, they will need to transition to Fabric capacity and pricing plan.
• New Customers will not be able to purchase Power BI Premium per capacity after July 1, 2024. Instead, they will need to procure Fabric capacities.
• Need to save time and plan your migration Microsoft is saying that the migration isn’t complicated, and you have 90 days to do so after your Power BI Premium capacity subscription has ended. It does require some additional time from you, since you need to plan, test, purchase- and deploy Fabric and migrate your current workloads. 
• Licensing changes The Power-Bi Premium licenses came along with dual-use rights for Power BI Report Server On-Premises, and the consumption of a Power BI report does not require a Power-BI Pro license. The last benefit remains valid with Fabric, but the report server is not. This means that customers who are utilizing the dual-use benefit need to buy SQL Server Enterprise licenses. 
• Prepare and analyze your price impact It probably doesn’t surprise you that the change comes with a major price increase. This seems to be a trend, every time Microsoft makes a change, it comes with a major pricing increase as well. Their feedback is that it isn’t major, but they forget that customers are purchasing Power-BI Premium under various discounted levels (A, B, C, D) within an Enterprise Agreement, in addition to any negotiated discounts. When combined, these factors result in a price increase ranging from 25% to 70%.

Power-BI Premium P1 compared to Fabric F64:

Every time Microsoft makes a change, it comes with a major pricing increase as well. Their feedback is that it isn’t major, but they forget that customers are purchasing Power-BI Premium under various discounted levels (A, B, C, D).