Microsoft is (mostly) getting rid of one of the lower-end editions of Azure Active Directory. As of July 1, the start of the company’s new fiscal year, Microsoft began pulling references and links to its Azure Active Directory Basic tier of service.
The Microsoft Azure Active Directory pricing page still currently lists (as of today, August 9) the Basic SKU as one of the available options. The edition line-up on that page includes Free, Basic, Premium P1 and Premium P2. The Basic and Premium editions are available through Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, Open Volume License program and the Cloud Solution Providers program.
In response to a few questions on Twitter this week, Alex Simons, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Identity Division, said “Azure AD Basic is going away. It’s in the process of being removed from docs and marketing pages. As in my previous tweet, it’s a super low volume SKU that mostly just confuses people.”
Microsoft introduced Azure Active Directory Basic in 2014 as a new edition falling between the free and premium SKUs. It was priced at $1 per user per month (with volume discounts available) and offered access to up to ten apps per user.
Currently, Azure Active Directory Basic is no longer available for purchase by new customers. I’ve heard that existing Azure AD Basic customers will still be able to continue to use it and renew it in the future if they so desire, as long as they aren’t using it with an Open License.
As of late, Microsoft has moved to referring to its Azure Active Directory developer platform as the Microsoft Identity Platform.
Credit: Zdnet
