Forum Discussion
Sharing without Pro license
It should be noted though, the use of Power BI involves Microsoft hardware performing the calculations and providing the bandwidth for all of the viewers. This isn't 2nd rate hardware and considering Premium is basically leasing your own private equivelent hardware at a rate of $5000K per month, you can start to see what the costs of hardware provisioning. It seems to me that Microsoft wants to offer service with a free component essentially paid for out of the pricing of the paid users. A line in the sand has be to placed somewhere for this cloud service. How fair is it if Free users are the majority of the user base and that cost burden is lumped on the Paid users?
Chances are, in the use case you are proposing, having 1 paid developer and many free consumers would be a system that would be a large cost burden. Microsoft isn't a charity and it is reasonable that they look to a financial model that does have some amount of return. Its also reasonable to expect that if a business is turning a profit in part due to a service they consume, that a cost is associated with that service.
Although I'm looking for an option that will cut cost but I cannot blame Microsoft for being intuitve and providing a great service that's affordable.
For all you that are complaining why MS is not providing free access or service, how would you react or feel if you owned MS. Would you allow such a free service? I think not! If you can't afford 9.99 a month, look for other solutions like MS Tabular, Crystal Reports or SQL Reporting. This is where your IT abilities should be thinking outside the box. Not whinning!