Matt Allington shares his thoughts on the recent Power BI licensing changes:
I think the existence of the Power BI Free product has been the root of the problem here. The fact that you could do so much for free (including some sharing) really muddied the waters and has taken the focus away from acknowledging that there needs to be a two tier pricing model for users (free is not a pricing tier). Microsoft is addressing one part of the problem by making it clear that Power BI Free is for personal (non sharing) use. However it has not addressed the second part of the problem being the need for a lower priced offering for users that just consume data in a way I would describe as “low involvement”. Microsoft has taken away the “proxy for a low priced sharing tier” without providing a genuine low priced replacement – this had just made the situation worse, not better and it has upset a lot of people. Power BI Free has been a great product to “try before you buy” but unfortunately its existence prevented Microsoft from realising it was missing a price tier for 2 years! Power BI Free for personal use (no sharing) is an incredibly generous offering from Microsoft. It is a shame that it will need a backlash to fill the real gap – a lower priced tier.
Check out the comments as well. I think Matt has a good point, and my guess is that the Power BI team will make it easier for small to medium sized businesses to use Power BI, but they first wanted to focus on the problem with big customers.