In service of Microsoft 365 and Teams, Microsoft to rebrand Common Data Service as Dataflex

Microsoft will rebrand the Common Data Service, the data storage and management foundation of the Power Platform, as Dataflex. The change is part of Microsoft's push to make Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents the core of application development in the context of Microsoft Teams.

The company has two new brand names ready to go:

• Dataflex (or perhaps "DataFlex", the company has used both versions in early communications), which will represent the capabilities of CDS available in Teams;
• Dataflex Pro, which will be the full-featured CDS used already by some Power Platform customers.

"Microsoft Dataflex Pro is the new name for the Common Data Service, and Microsoft Dataflex is the newest iteration of this technology in Teams," wrote Alysa Taylor, Microsoft corporate vice president, business applications and industry, in a blog post today as part of the start of Inspire 2020, Microsoft's annual partner-focused conference. As with all Microsoft events this year, Inspire 2020 is all-virtual.

Microsoft CVP Charles Lamanna added more explanation in a new blog post stating: 

Microsoft Dataflex delivers a built-in, low-code data platform for Teams, and provides relational data storage, rich data types, enterprise grade governance, and one-click solution deployment. Microsoft Dataflex enables everyone to easily build and deploy apps and intelligent chatbots in Teams with Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Virtual Agents. 

And he continued: 

With the addition of Microsoft Dataflex, Teams users now have key business data at their fingertips to build new apps that address real business problems—all without ever leaving Teams.

Dataflex will be available to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 customers who have Power Apps and Power Automate rights, signaling a new push by Microsoft to establish CDS/Dataflex as the default data storage and management layer for the Power Platform. Until now, many customers have relied on ad hoc data repositories like SharePoint lists rather than a more robust data store.