Welcome to our April edition of the Microsoft Licensing Update! As always, we’re here to keep you informed about the latest changes and developments in the world of Microsoft licensing. This month, Microsoft has introduced a few major changes.
- Retirement of Power-Bi Premium SKUs.
- Teams and Office will be separated globally.
- Microsoft Defender for Identity has been added as a Core Online Service.
- Added Supply Chain Management Premium product to Availability.
- Removed Dynamics FromSA options from the Product Terms.
- Added Microsoft Intune Frontline Worker products.
Retirement of Power-Bi Premium SKUs
Microsoft will retire the Power-Bi Premium licensing options (P-SKUs) at the end of this year, December 2024. Existing customers could continue using the Power-Bi Premium licensing model until their next renewal.
After January 1, 2025, Power-Bi Premium will be licensed through Azure Fabric. Microsoft states that the procurement options provide more flexibility in SKU size, pay-as-you-go billing options, access to Azure-only features, and is eligible for Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC).
What is your impact?
The impact lies in three areas, migration, licensing changes and a significant price impact.
- 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:
| Product | #of vCores | Subscription type | List Price per month | List Price per Year |
| Power-BI P1 | 8 | Annual Subscription | € 3.497,34* | € 41.968,08* |
| Fabric F64 | 8 | Pay-As-You-Go | € 8.197,63 | € 98.371,56 |
| Fabric F64 | 8 | Annual Subscription (Reservation) | € 4.876,02 | € 58.512,24 |
* March 2024 pricelist level D.
Teams and Office will be separated globally
Last year Microsoft introduced the separation of Teams and Office in its Microsoft 365- and Office 365 bundles in the EEA region. Microsoft will extend that approach worldwide.
This doesn’t impact existing customers but will have an impact on new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscribers. The impact is that new customers need to buy two products against a higher price.
Microsoft Defender for Identity has been added as a Core Online Service.
Microsoft Defender for Identity has been added as a Core Online Service, as well as added to the Security Practices and Policies Table and Location of Customer Data at Rest clause:
Defender for Identity. When Customer provisions a Microsoft Defender for Identity tenant to be deployed within an available Geo, then, for that service, Microsoft will store Customer Data at rest within that specified Geo except as noted in the Microsoft Defender for Identity Trust Center.
Added Supply Chain Management Premium product to Availability
Supply Chain Management Premium was added to the Product Terms.
Removed Dynamics FromSA options from the Product Terms
We previously informed our customer that Microsoft would retire their FromSA options. FromSA has already been removed from the Product Terms for Microsoft 365 and is now also removed for Dynamics.
Added Microsoft Intune Frontline Worker products
Added Frontline Worker products to availability and prerequisite tables.
