Software King of the World, Microsoft, has backed down its much-criticised self-service scheme and made it possible for IT departments to switch off.
The move would have let employees within an organisation bypass their IT departments to buy licenses for three Office 365 products – for Power BI, PowerApps and Flow using just their Azure Active Directory (AD) login details and own payment details, without having to consult with their IT departments.
Microsoft’s logic was the self-service scheme follows a model for modern working habits, in which employees crave more autonomy over choosing which tools and services they use.
However IT departments were furious saying it would undermine official procurement policies and potentially cause chaos with company budgets.
Customer feedback posted beneath Microsoft’s original FAQ was almost exclusively negative, with many questioning Microsoft’s thinking.
Microsoft issued an update yesterday, in light of the response, suggesting it would now provide IT admins with a way of turning off self-service purchasing within their organisation via PowerShell. Details behind the exact mechanism, however, weren’t offered, and the self-service scheme is otherwise still going ahead.
The rollout date, however, has also been pushed back from 19 November to 14 January 2020 in order to give businesses more time to prepare for the changes, the company added.
Microsoft maintains that the scheme will create a greater sense of independence for employees, and meet a “demand from both users and organisations to allow users to buy subscriptions on their own”.
Microsoft will still launch self-service purchasing from 14 January in the US, starting with Power BI. These changes, however, mean IT admins can restrict users within their organisations from participating, effectively undermining the principle of self-service altogether but restoring the status quo.
