Microsoft have announced the end of Power BI Premium Capacity SKUs in favour of the newer and shinier Microsoft Fabric. Note that the “Power BI Premium per-user” SKU is unaffected.
Key dates
New customers will not be able to purchase Power BI Premium after July 1st, 2024.
Existing non-EA customers can renew until Jan 1st, 2025. If your renewal date is after that, you will need to transition to Fabric at renewal. Additional Power BI Premium capacity can be purchased until the end of the agreement.
EA customers can continue with Power BI Premium until the end of their contract. If that is post Jan 1st, 2025 they will need to switch to Fabric at renewal. Additional Power BI Premium capacity can be purchased until the end of the agreement.
Sovereign Cloud customers are unaffected as they don’t currently have access to Fabric.
Benefits and differences
Fabric is the evolution of Power BI Premium and the next step in Microsoft’s organisation wide data analytics strategy. Thus, as well as the Power BI Premium functionality, Fabric contains additional services and features such as OneLake and various Azure services. Additional benefits include:
Fabric can be used to contribute towards your MACC (Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment) agreement.
There is a Pay As You go (PAYG) option for Fabric.
Fabric SKUs start at a lower point that Power BI Premium. However, note that Copilot for Power BI (which I assume will become Copilot for Fabric) doesn’t work for the lower end SKUs.
Of course, there is always something that is removed or made more complicated with any product retirement and this is no different.
Each Power BI Premium capacity P-SKU includes the ability to run Power BI Report Server on-premises…but Microsoft Fabric does not, and is not compatible with it. To continue accessing Power BI Report Server, you will need to have SQL Server Enterprise w/SA instead.
Since the introduction of Copilot for Microsoft 365, one of the big questions I, and others, have been asking is “how do you determine value?”. I laid out my initial concerns, questions, and actions here and now want to look at Microsoft’s offerings to enable this kind of insight. Currently available in preview (https://insights.cloud.microsoft/#/CopilotDashboard) – although I couldn’t get it to work – Microsoft’s Copilot Dashboard is their option to get the much needed insights.
Microsoft Copilot Dashboard
Microsoft aim for this to help customers across the 3 stages of the adoption journey:
It will show:
Who is eligible for Copilot for M365
How people are currently using M365 apps
How people are using Copilot and in which different apps
Information on how Copilot is impacting productivity
Microsoft are referring to it as “Microsoft Copilot Dashboard, powered by Viva” and from “early 2024” there will be additional dashboard features available to users with Viva Insights licenses. According to Microsoft, these will include:
“Copilot adoption and usage metrics combined with collaboration data, out-of-the box reports for organizational leaders, before and after behavioral data and even insights from employee surveys.”
and will also show time spent in meetings, processing emails, and creating content with before and after Copilot information.
All in all, the Copilot dashboard will be useful for organisations looking to understand more about their Copilot readiness and then their Copilot usage. However, some may have concerns about the reliability and objectivity of the data and reports generated by Microsoft on their own software. Ideally, Microsoft will be transparent and accountable in how they collect, process, and share the data from the Copilot dashboard. They should also provide ways for users to verify, challenge, or complement the data with their own sources and feedback.
I’ve recently recorded a couple of videos with Nathan Miller, Microsoft Program Manager at Bytes.
In the first, we discuss Copilot for Microsoft 365 (we recorded this in October 2023 but it took me ages to edit it!):
We talk about the General Availability of Copilot for M365 as well as tips for preparing for deployment.
We then talk about the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC): agreement:
where we explain what the MACC agreement is, how it works, and the potential pros and cons for customer organisations. We also talk about the Azure cloud marketplace and the impact this will have on customer procurement processes and also the wider IT channel.
I hope you find the videos useful and informative – as there are more planned! Let me know if you have requests for topics and also if you’d like to jump on a video or podcast with me at some point. I usually focus on blog posts but am looking to get all multimedia on you in 2024 so this is just the start 😁
Microsoft have announced a new Copilot – we now have Copilot for Service.
Copilot has been within Dynamics 365 for a few months already and now Microsoft bring the ability to “synthesize[s] vast amounts of data already available from an organization’s trusted knowledge sources to provide relevant, timely guidance to agents in their flow of work” to users of other CRM and Contact Centre solutions including Salesforce and ServiceNow, and Zendesk.
How does it work?
Microsoft say that it will very easy:
“Organizations can simply point to their data—such as public websites, SharePoint, knowledgebase articles, and offline files—and in a few minutes unlock generative AI-powered conversations across all of their data”
It will enable customer service agents to ask natural language questions of their data, whether in Teams or another client. Further down the line additional features will include email summaries, email drafts, and meeting recaps as well as automating common CRM tasks based on emails and context.
Interestingly, this product will include the much hyped Copilot for Microsoft 365 – meaning these users will also have access to Copilot across their Office suite.
Pricing and availability
Copilot for Service will be $50 per user per month (pupm). Remember that this includes Copilot for M365 which is priced at $30 pupm alone.
Copilot for Service is currently in public preview in US-based environments only, and the Copilot for M365 features may not be available during preview.
Announcement here and more info sign up form here.
Microsoft announced their Q3 FY23 (Jan – Mar 23) results recently – let’s take a look at the numbers.
Overall revenue for the quarter was $52.9 billion – an increase of 7% while net income was up 9% to $18.3 billion. The latter something of a turnaround from the 12% decrease the previous quarter.
Productivity & Business Processes
Revenue = $17.5 billion…up 11%
Office 365 Commercial up 14%
LinkedIn up 8%
Dynamics up 25%
A little higher than Q2 but still lower than we’ve been seeing for the last couple of years.
Intelligent Cloud
Revenue = $22.1 billion…up 16%
Azure growth was 27% again, a decent increase but continuing the ongoing shrinking of the percentage increase each quarter.
Earnings Call
Satya Nadella stated that Microsoft continue to focus on 3 priorities:
Helping customers to get the most value out of their digital spend
Investing in AI to increase their Total Addressable Market (TAM) and be the leader
Aligning their cost structure with their revenue growth
We are now in the era of ChatGPT and AI – an area where Microsoft are expected to do very well in the coming months and years – and Nadella stated in the earnings call that they have over 2,500 Open AI Azure customers which is a 10x quarter on quarter increase. He also mentioned that ChatGPT runs on top of Microsoft’s CosmosDB.
Further updates include:
Azure Arc is up to 15,000+ customers which is 150% up year on year (YoY).
Power Platform is up to 33 million Monthly Active Users (MAU) – almost 50% up YoY.
Teams has broken the 300 million MAU mark.
Almost 60% of Enterprise customers are buying Teams Phone, Teams Rooms, and/or Teams Premium.
Almost 600,000 customers have deployed at least 4 Microsoft security workloads – a 35% YoY increase.
Amy Hood stated that, at the end of April 23, total headcount was 9% more than a year prior.
Satya mentioned Copilot several times and, in response to an analyst question, stated that:
“We do plan to monetize a separate set of meters across all of the tech stack, whether they’re consumption meters or per-user subscriptions. The copilot that’s priced, and it is there, is GitHub Copilot. That’s a good example of incrementally how we monetize the price lists out there, and others are to be priced, because we are in preview mode. But you can expect us to do what we’ve done with GitHub Copilot pretty much across the board”
Satya Nadella, Q3 FY23 earnings call
and that gives a good idea of what Copilot licensing may look like. I think my expectation of add-ons to E3 and E5 is pretty accurate.
While Microsoft’s revenue and profits are looking great, and they’re excited about all the growth ahead of them, the shine is dimmed somewhat by 2 things: the memory of the layoffs of circa 10,000 staff in January and the recent news that there are to be no pay raises across Microsoft. Give the increases in cost of living, energy, and inflation – wages staying flat can be seen as a pay cut in many ways.
M365 Advanced Data Residency M365 Cross-tenant User Data Migration
There is also the removal of: Microsoft Threat Experts SharePoint Advanced Management Plan 1
The SharePoint SKU was only added last month but there was very little info available, so it seems likely it was added in error. Let’s see if/when it reappears.
A nice addition – Azure Active Directory Basic now allows unlimited SSO (Single Sign On) – the previous limit was 10 apps so à really significant change.
There is a 50% off promo for Defender for Endpoint on EA from Nov 1, 2023 to June 30, 2023
Microsoft have just announced a range of changes to their rules around using their software in SOME cloud environments, aimed at reducing some of the heat they’ve been receiving from European cloud providers – including complaints to the European Commission – and also heading off potential issues with the EU Digital Markets Act.
The changes include CSP access, more support for providers from Microsoft, and some changes to Software Assurance licensing rules too.
Background
Microsoft have been under fire from various angles due to their licensing rules that restrict which products can be used within 3rd-party datacentres…particularly when compared to Microsoft Azure. It recently came to light that ‘OVHCloud’ lodged a complaint with the European Commission in 2021 and many of the “Fair Software Licensing Principles” were seen to be aimed at Microsoft too.
The current BYOL (Bring Your Own Licensing) rules of Microsoft restrict certain on-premises licenses from being used in cloud environments (apart from Azure) which, for some customers, causes frustration and higher costs…and in some cases it means a project cannot be completed.
What’s changing?
Microsoft have announced a big new focus on ‘European Cloud Providers’ (ECP) – giving them expanded access to CSP (Cloud Solution Program) as well as creating a new internal team to focus on supporting them and their customers.
Cloud providers can host more products
The ECPs will be able to offer hosted desktop solutions containing Windows desktop and Office – including Office 365 Apps for Business/Enterprise. They will offer this via their own “unified solutions” and also by hosting customer-owned licenses – hugely expanding the available options for customers.
Microsoft are also expanding the availability of long-term fixed pricing for these providers, removing some of the pricing volatility from them and their customers.
Software Assurance changes
This is a pretty big one – Microsoft are adding ‘License Mobility’ rights to Software Assurance for Windows Server, Windows desktop, and Office. This means customers can use their on-premises licenses in 3rd-party ECP datacentres (but not AWS, GCP, or Alibaba), something that wasn’t possible before.
New Windows Server licensing option
Windows Server is licensed based on the physical CPUs and cores within the server. Microsoft are now introducing the ability to license just the virtual capacity you need, regardless of the underlying hardware. Whether this will be available globally and across all licensing programs, or restricted to just ECP datacentres, is something we are yet to discover.
European Cloud Providers – and more?
Although Microsoft’s announcement was careful to keep referring to ‘European Cloud Providers’ – it seems a Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed that the CSP and Software Assurance changes apply globally (via Mary Jo Foley). This means the vast majority of cloud providers are now able to offer something to their customers that they couldn’t previously.
On the flipside of that though, the main takeaway is that this doesn’t help customers looking to run software on AWS, Google, and Alibaba (the Listed Providers) and, in all honesty, that’s where I see most of the customer issues in this area. However, perhaps Microsoft hope that not only will these changes placate the EU but that they will also divert business away from the Listed Providers to smaller partners instead. In the new world, Microsoft may see that as a win…sure, they’re not on Azure…but they’re not on AWS either.
Update:
Microsoft have confirmed here that these changes do NOT apply to the Listed Providers – Amazon, Google, and Ali-Baba.
Other changes
Microsoft have outlined their 5 “European Cloud Principles”:
Microsoft 365 Business Voice, the SMB cloud telephony package, is added. Available via CSP and requires Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Business Standard/Business Premium.
The various name changes (ATP = Defender etc.) have (finally) been updated.
2 x Power Apps promotions that could be quite interesting have been added:
“Power Apps per App” promo = Available to new/existing EA/EAS/CSP customers & has a minimum purchase of 200.
“Power Apps per User” promo = Available to new/existing EA or EAS (not CSP) customers & has a minimum purchase of 5,000.
Microsoft have announced a partnership with Nutanix to help organisations develop multi-cloud and hybrid cloud scenarios. Nutanix clusters will be added into Azure datacentres – extending on-premises Nutanix environments into the cloud:
Software and nodes will be paid for via “Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC)” or PAYG, as well as existing Nutanix licenses being portable into Azure. Azure Hybrid Benefits can be utilised on the “Nutanix Clusters on Azure” and Microsoft’s Extended Support Updates are available too. Additionally, via Azure ARC, various Azure services – including Kubernetes – can be run in on-premises Nutanix environments.
Microsoft are really working to extend Azure to as many organisations as possible – VMware on Azure, Azure Stack, Azure Arc, and now this. It seems very much the approach they took to Office software on mobile devices – if you allow people to use your service alongside those from competitors, you end up in a better position that forcing them choose one or the other.
The service is currently in public preview – more info is available here and you can sign up to the waiting list here.
Project Embrace is a new initiative from SAP to help their customers move to the cloud, and digitally transform, quickly and easily. Microsoft are a key part of this, particularly around SAP S4/HANA running in the Azure cloud. The 2 vendors have created a joint roadmap with guidance to help organisations move from on-premises to the cloud. This new phase takes things further whereby Microsoft & SAP will align their partner ecosystems and collaborate around customer support.
This seems similar in many way to the partnership Microsoft announced with Oracle earlier this year, continuing the trend of “co-ompetition” between some of the largest players in the new cloud world. It can also be seen as a revival of the SAP/Microsoft “Duet” partnership – a joint product they launched many years ago to facilitate collaboration for companies using SAP and Microsoft SharePoint.
It’s interesting that Microsoft talk about being the first global cloud provider to support Project Embrace, although the SAP statement includes Amazon AWS and Google Cloud alongside them.
You can see more from SAP, and the others involved, here.
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 