Getting prepared for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central subscription eruption

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central launched last week at Directions Asia in Bangkok. As promised in the autumn of 2017, Microsoft will be delivering ‘full fat' NAV in the cloud from 2^nd April. All the talk I've seen since focused on the name (I think it's good, a lot better than the previous efforts and I'm not nostalgic for keeping old names), product (pretty much what I described in my What is Tenerife article except the new interface which was under NDA) or the availability (we get it in the UK so I'm happy, my condolences to those whose countries weren't included but look for W1 in July).

But there has not been much focus on the pricing and licencing in the chatter, and I find that strange because I think it's the biggest change and challenge for the partner community.

CSP Subscription & Named User Only.

Its only available via cloud service provider licences which is pretty logical for a SaaS service. No perpetual option, with its big upfront fees and annual licence. No concurrent user pricing, this is named users only.

As a reseller, you've got to invoice and collect the money monthly from every client for which you're the partner of record. You've got to transact each month with Microsoft if you're big enough to get direct status or indirect via the likes of a Master VAR or any other CSP distributor if not.

This is the year subscription takes off? Heard it before...

Comments to that effect were made under that last article and I have sympathy, after all it's ten years since NAV became available on SPLA and the ...