Video summary
Andrew Connell discusses the recent announcement regarding updates to the Microsoft 365 developer program, expressing significant skepticism about its current substance while highlighting several critical unanswered questions. He notes that the official communication felt more like a vague acknowledgment of listener feedback rather than a concrete plan with detailed specifications. His primary concern revolves around the distinction between these new "future dev tenants" and standard commercial licenses; specifically, he asks whether they will offer lower costs or greater flexibility for developing custom Microsoft 365 Copilot agents without incurring unnecessary expenses when features are not actively being used.
A major point of contention is the requirement to purchase a full-featured Microsoft 365 Copilot license at $30 per user per month with a one-year commitment just to access essential development capabilities like grounding data from Microsoft Graph via the semantic index. Connell explains that without this specific license, developers are limited to basic custom instructions and real-time actions but lack access to rich knowledge sources within their tenant. Consequently, setting up a functional development environment currently costs approximately $432 annually when combining Business Essentials with the necessary Copilot licenses, raising doubts about whether the new program will provide a more affordable or flexible alternative for serious developers who need these advanced features immediately.
To address these gaps, Connell outlines his wish list, which centers on reviving and adapting the legacy Customer Digital Experience (CDX) program to better suit modern development needs. He recalls how CDX allowed partners to create disposable tenants populated with realistic dummy data—such as emails, calendar events, and SharePoint documents—for demos or testing before discarding them after a set period. His ideal scenario involves having access to such flexible environments where he could spin up specific licenses for projects, conferences, or classes, then easily transition resources between different tenants without being locked into permanent commitments that prevent experimentation with multiple client scenarios simultaneously.
In the meantime, Connell advises developers needing immediate solutions to rely on existing commercial offerings while waiting for potential improvements from Microsoft's upcoming rollout. He suggests a pragmatic approach where users can start with low-cost month-to-month Business Essentials licenses and upgrade only when necessary by adding Copilot licenses or moving to higher-tier plans like E3 or E5 depending on project requirements. Despite the current limitations, he emphasizes that providing direct feedback through comments is crucial, as Microsoft has shown willingness to listen to developer pitches in previous instances; therefore, articulating specific needs regarding cost structures and tenant flexibility could influence future decisions and help shape a more robust paid development solution for the community.
Read the full video transcript
Hi everyone and welcome back to my
channel. I'm Andrew Connell. In today's
video, I want to follow up on
Microsoft's recent announcement about
the Microsoft 365 developer program that
they shared on April the 23rd. Uh last
week, I shared a video breaking down
Microsoft's announcement um about the
developer program. The title of their uh
announcement was exciting updates coming
to the Microsoft 365 developer program.
Now, many of you have been reaching out
to me since I posted that video, both in
leaving comments on the video, um, as
well as on my article about a bunch of
things that we didn't really know about
in that announcement. Um, I also have
questions. You're not the only one. And
the more I've thought about it, the more
I have actually more questions because
it wasn't so much of an announcement as
it was kind of just like a we hear you
and we're doing some stuff, but there
wasn't much substance to it. So, I have
a bunch of questions that I would love
to share with you and just kind of see
what you think as well with this. My
biggest question is pretty
straightforward. What is going to make
these new commercially available future
dev tenants, how is it going to make
them different from a regular commercial
tenant that I can go buy right now? You
know, is this new dev tenant, is this
going to be like something is it going
to be cheaper, less expensive than what
I can get commercially today? Is it
going to have more flexibility
associated with it? especially when it
comes to uh when I want to do Microsoft
365 co-pilot uh custom agent
development. And speaking of co-pilot,
if there is a co-pilot expense
associated with this dev tenant, will I
be able to turn it on and off when I'm
not using it or maybe be able to use it
between tenants? That way, I'm not
constantly going to be spending money
for something that's just sitting there.
And another question is it going to
include the fullfeatured Microsoft 365
co-pilot not just that limited like
consumption or metered experience. As I
mentioned before the consumption model
it only gives you the custom
instructions and the custom actions that
reach out to the real time data sources
that you don't get any of the grounding
data uh from Microsoft 365 or Microsoft
graph um as or one of the other
knowledge sources that you can normally
add uh to your tenant. You might be
like, "Wait, wait a minute. What are you
talking about there? Why is that?"
Because to get that functionality, you
need something called the semantic
index. The semantic index. When
Microsoft says that they're grounding
your data from Microsoft Graph, they're
being truthful, but really what they're
doing is they're pulling data or they're
doing searches against something called
the semantic index. The semantic index
is is an index uh is a semantic index of
content that's inside of Microsoft graph
which makes it uh much easier and much
more attuned for um AI based queries. So
the semantic index though it isn't
provisioned in your Microsoft 365 tenant
until you have at least one Microsoft
365 co-pilot license at $30 per user per
month. So, right now, if you want to do
any serious development with a tenant
and build agents with full
functionality, you really need to buy at
least one of those Microsoft 365
co-pilot licenses with a one-year
commitment uh for $30 per user per
month. That plus, you're going to have
another license that you can actually
use the Microsoft 365 co-pilot license
with. I suggest the Microsoft 365
Business Essentials license. Now, that
means your entire cost for your
developer tenant is going to be about
$432 a year. Will the new dev tenant
cost less than this? Will it have more
flexibility? These are all questions
that we just don't have any answers to
yet. I've got some wishes associated
with those questions. For example, one
of the things I'm really hoping for is
that we get features that are similar to
what we have with something called the
CDX program. If you don't know what the
CDX program is, it stands for the
customer digital experiences. And it was
a program where partners can create uh
Microsoft 365 tenants with specific
features enabled for different scenarios
like business intelligence,
collaboration, etc. These tenants were
perfect for demos. You could spin one
up, show it to a customer, and then
throw it away when you were all done.
They were active for 90 days or up to a
year, and you could have a few of them
going at once. So, when I had access to
CDX at one point, I could spin up I
think it was two, maybe three, maybe
only one of the 90-day tenants and then
I would I had an option to sometimes I
could renew it, but sometimes I just had
to throw it away. They were truly
disposable, but I couldn't have lots of
them created for different things. And
then I could have one of the one-year
tenants available to me as well. As a
developer, that is exactly what I want.
If I'm a teacher teaching a class or
speaking at a conference or if I'm a
developer and I'm attending a class or I
want to do a lab or I am doing something
on Microsoft learn or I'm working on a
project or I'm working on two or three
projects for clients, I want to quickly
create a tenant and just throw it away
when I'm finished with it for that
specific use case. Another great thing
about those CDX tenants was the sample
content. They came populated with
calendar events, emails, contacts,
SharePoint documents, content and
SharePoint pages, uh, SharePoint lists,
Teams messages, meeting transcripts, a
ton of dummy data, but it what it did is
it gave us a realistic environment for
that we could use for development and
testing. That's great. Now, if I could
make a wish to Microsoft today, it would
be give me a way to buy access to what I
call what they call the CDX tenants in
the CDX program. let me apply certain
licenses to those tenants as needed.
Really, what I what I really want is I
really want to be able to have to pay
for CDX. I want to be able to have
access to it and then I want to buy
maybe one or two of the business
essentials licenses and maybe a
Microsoft 365 co-pilot license and then
I want to be able to just move them
around to the different tenants as I see
fit. That's what I would really like to
have the ability to do. And maybe I've
got low quotas and stuff like that.
That's fine, but the tenants can't stay
around forever. that system already
exists. Now, the the CDX program exists,
not the ability to go through and to buy
a license and just use it all over the
place. I'd love to be able to do this.
I'd love to buy as many as I need for
specific projects or conferences or
classes, whatever it is. And if that
means that I need to make a one-year
commitment and spend something on it, I
don't I mean, it depends on the price,
but I think that's totally worth it. or
if I want to use it on a month-to-month
basis at a slightly higher cost instead
of an annual commitment because I don't
want to make that long-term commitment.
Fine, give me that option, too. I'd love
to have that option. That would be
absolutely awesome. I know a lot of you
today are still like, well, but if I
need a development environment right
now, what am I supposed to do? Well,
it's a good question. Unfortunately, the
only thing we got is that same
commercial offering that I've mentioned
before. So, it really is going to depend
on what kind of development you're
doing. So, if you're just doing basic, I
want to get in the door and I want to
play with Microsoft 365, get a Microsoft
365 business essentials license. It is
$7.20 a month per user when you only do
a month-to-month commitment. So, I could
use it for two months, spend less than
$15, cancel it, I'm good to go. Or you
can get it for $6 per user per month if
you make a one-year commitment, and then
it'll be still paid out $6 a month, but
it'll only come out to $72 a year. Now,
if you're going to do co-pilot
development, you want to do like
co-pilot uh Microsoft 365, use like the
the toolkit to build declarative agents,
well, you're going to want to also have
knowledge uh with those agents as well.
I seriously doubt you're going to want
to build an agent and only do custom
instructions and um uh like real-time
data sources with actions. You're not
going to want to do that. You're going
to want to spend the $30 per user per
month to get the semantic index inside
that tenant, which means you're going to
have to buy the Microsoft 365 co-pilot
$30 per user per month license. And that
has a one-year commitment, which means
you're going to spend $360 a year. Add
it all up and that's $432 a year for
your development option if that's what
you're going to do. Now again, there may
be other things that you need inside of
this tenant for uh different licensing
things that you would need, and that
would obviously add to the cost, maybe
increase the business essentials license
because you need to go with something
like an E3 or an E5. It just depends on
what you're doing. But that's kind of
what I'd be looking at for a 12-month uh
developer environment. Now, by the time
Microsoft rolls out this new program, we
might have better options, but if you
need something in the next month or two,
I wouldn't hold your breath. That's ex
this what I just showed you. That's what
I do. So I'm speaking I'm being honest.
I still have one of those old legacy dev
tenants. Uh the one that I got from the
dev program, but I also have another
tenant that I use just for development
like this that has a paid it's a a paid
commercial tenant that has a business
essentials license on it. And then I've
added a bunch of my own content to it.
And then I've gone through and I use it
uh with a Microsoft 365 co-pilot uh the
$30 per user per month. So that's what I
do as well. Now, I would love to hear
what you think about this. What are your
biggest questions about these developer
tenants? What features would you like to
see? What do you think about my proposal
here? Do you like it? Uh, do you dislike
it? Drop a comment below and let me
know. Remember, if you learned anything
from the last time I did something like
this when I asked Microsoft, you know,
here's a pitch. Here's what I hope that
you guys do about a new dev program and
a and a a paid solution. They they're
listening. They're paying attention to
all of this and they're trying to make
things better for developers. So we can
get this feedback and we can send it
back to them and who knows we may have
an impact on it. Now if you found this
video helpful please hit that like
button and subscribe for more Microsoft
365 development content. I really appre
appreciate it. Thanks for watching and I
hope to see you in my next video.