 In the past few months, I've talked to many developers about Microsoft Teams app development. Now these developers include independent consultants, developers from large companies, and those working on client projects. And most of them mentioned that their customers want to move their existing power app investments to Microsoft Teams apps and Microsoft 365 apps. But why do they want to do this? This video is going to answer that question, so stay tuned to find out what specific frustrations customers have and it's not just about licensing costs. Hey, I'm Andrew. If you're new here, be sure to hit that subscribe button to stay up to date on all my videos related to Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure full stack developers. Now in my introduction, I mentioned that I've had many conversations with developers about Microsoft Teams app development. I've spoken to independent consultants, developers from consultancies working for multiple clients, and corporate developers that create apps for their own organizations. They've had different experiences with Microsoft Teams app development and Microsoft 365 app development. Some of them are experienced in Microsoft Teams app development while others are not. Some have experience with SharePoint framework development. Others have only built web apps and have no SharePoint framework experience. Throughout all of these conversations, the vast majority have shared a common theme. They've seen an increase in demand for Microsoft Teams app development from their customers over the last few months. Now while that's interesting, almost all of them point to a single thing that they hear from their customers. They want to transition existing power app investments to Microsoft Teams apps and Microsoft 365 apps. And it's not just the developers I spoke with. I reached out to a few friends that are in consultancies across the world to see what they were seeing. Many, but not all, said they've started hearing the same thing from their customers in the last year or so. Now to be clear, there is definitely interest and demand in power apps. I am not being negative on power apps. I'm simply sharing what I've seen and heard firsthand and what others have shared with me. But why? Why are customers saying this? After noticing this trend, I reviewed my notes from these conversations thanks to the help of chatGPD. Some of the individuals pointed out that power apps can be only used in a single tenant, not in multi-tenant solutions. Others complained that when they used power apps to customize a list or a library's form and SharePoint, it destroyed the accessibility of the form, rendering it useless to screen readers and those with vision impairments. Now while I cannot confirm the validity of all of these complaints, I did categorize frustrations and pain points shared by customers regarding power apps into two main areas, licensing and complexity. Now let's look at these two different things. Some customers are complaining about the ongoing licensing and the complexity and the costs related to users who want to move the apps they built using power apps over to Teams apps. Customers have multiple licensing options with power apps, but the vast array of options gets confusing real quick. For example, the Power Apps Licensing Overview page lists a few options of how you can get power apps, such as per app, per user, or pay as you go. Let me show you what I mean by that. If we come over to the licensing overview for Power Apps platform page in the Microsoft Learn documentation, if you scroll down a little bit, you'll find where we reference this PDF licensing guide. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab that and let's go ahead and open it up. And what I see here first is it's 33 pages long. Now I get it, this deals with both power apps and power automate and this whole AI studio thing that we have now and power pages, maybe even Power BI, there's a lot of stuff here, but that's 33 pages of licensing information. So let's scroll down a little bit. I'm gonna jump over here to page 11 where we get into the power apps piece of this. Here we go. Now let's zoom in a little bit and we can see what the complexity is. Here we've got power app subscriptions, we've got other power app subscriptions, this is power apps premium, this is power apps on a per app basis. So this is the recommended option at $20 per user per month. That makes sense. And we also have another option here, power apps per user, which is $5 per user per month. The page you go option is where it's metered and you get $10 per active user per app per month. You've also got some options here about using selected Dynamics 365 Pro and Enterprise licenses as well as M365 or Office 365 licenses here. And you got different plans that are available like power apps or using AI builder or power platform connectors and Dataverse. As you can see, it gets pretty complicated, pretty darn fast. Let's consider the complexity aspect of power apps licensing. The following chart is extracted from the power platform licensing guide that's shared by Microsoft on their website as you've just seen. Now, although it includes information about power apps, power automate, power virtual agents, power pages and Dataverse, the updated December 2023 licensing guide itself is a lengthy 33 page PDF. You seriously need 33 pages to explain power platform licensing? I don't know about you, but I'm hoping we see co-pilot for Microsoft licensing. Now, that's a good scenario for AI to simplify our lives, not making pretty SharePoint sites. Anyway, I digress. Now, I don't wanna go into a detailed explanation about licensing, but let's see how this becomes a complex discussion pretty quick. Every user needs a license to use a power app. Now, you can choose between a per user license at $5 per user per month or per app license at $10 per user per app per month. Some Microsoft 365 and Office 365 and Dynamic 365 licenses, they already include power apps, but some users may need a premium license at $20 per user per month if the app contains things like premium connectors, but it doesn't in there. Now, I'm not gonna go through all the details, but this just proves that the answer to the question of I just need my users to access an app I built, what are my options? It's not a simple answer. Let's look at the rest of this table, and that's not all. There are similar tables for Power Automate, Microsoft Co-Pilot Studio, Power Pages, Dataverse, AI Builder, you name it, there's a lot of stuff here. 33 pages of licensing, yikes. In addition to licensing, the other common theme that I heard was related to the flexibility and maintenance of their app. The developers that I spoke to, they said that their customers told them that they have challenges maintaining new feature requests on existing apps. It's fine when they're building their first app, but when they run into challenges, is when customers have additional features that they wanna add to expand or add additional complexity to their app. They also have many requests for deeper integration with Microsoft Teams, such as building meeting apps, message extensions, bots, or being able to integrate into the activity fee. This almost always required creating custom connectors that were required a premium license because custom connectors, they're not included with existing Microsoft 365 or Office or Dynamics 365 licenses. It is for these reasons that the developers that I spoke with mentioned that their customers have an interest in exploring and learning more about Teams app development as an alternative to creating Power Apps. Much of the marketing that promotes building apps quickly with low-code and no-code solutions using tools like Power Apps, it encourages people to go in that direction. But it's, while it's very appealing to many customers, it does come with some increased licensing costs over the lifespan of the app within an organization. Because using Power Apps, you can build an app more quickly and make it available to your users often faster than if you were to create a custom app using full stack development techniques, such as the one that runs within Microsoft Teams as a Microsoft 365 app. But all users must be licensed for Power Apps, and these licensing costs, they're ongoing. Microsoft benefits from this because it provides a consistent monthly source of revenue. Power App licensing is highly profitable for Microsoft, which is why almost every field office has a Power Platform Licensing Specialist. But on the other hand, when you build full stack apps, like Microsoft Teams apps or Microsoft 365 apps, you don't face the same licensing challenges. The costs in terms of both time and money are primarily associated with the development phase of the app rather than ongoing licensing costs. What surprises me the most is that when I explain this to customers who say, I want to Power App to do X, many of them haven't considered the alternatives. And in most cases, they aren't even aware of the available options. I understand how this may seem. I'm a full stack developer. I'm not a low code or low code developer. So you may be reading this or listening to me and watching this and thinking, well, this is self-serving. That is not my intention at all. I simply want to raise awareness. I have these conversations so frequently that I wanted to have something that I could refer people to in the future. But I acknowledge what you may be thinking and so I just want to say it and be the one to say it first. Look, I'm not against Power Apps or the Power Platform products in any way. And yes, I do prefer full stack development over low code and the no code approach. That's why I collaborate with my friend Laura Rogers of IW Mentor and recommend that my customers check out her courses on Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, Power Automate and other options that she provides. I don't disregard the usefulness of the low code, no code approach. It's just not my preferred way of building apps. So it's not what I focus on or the type of people that I typically work with. I simply believe that customers should be aware of their options as well as the advantages and disadvantages of all of those choices. Section is a signal or start up a trend. While this has all been true for years, companies are just now starting to realize that more that they invest in low code and no code solutions, the more they become dependent on the increased and ongoing costs. This observation is not recent. The noise from this refrigerator has been going for nearly a year is just a low hum, but it's beginning louder and louder from my perspective. This differs from building an app as a Microsoft Teams app where the costs will be higher up front to develop the app as a Microsoft 365 app or a Teams app. And this is because there are no ongoing licensing costs for months or years of app usage unlike when you're building power apps. It is not that one option, such as building a power app or building a Teams app is better than the other one. The answer to this question, that's gonna vary for each customer. It's important to understand where the costs are gonna lie within your project, whether it is upfront or it's ongoing. You may be able to get the app two years hands faster by rolling out a power app. However, you will need to ensure that each user has the necessary license to use it, which can be more expensive if your app utilizes premium content. Alternatively, you may choose to take more time to build the app as a full stack app and use it not only as a Microsoft Teams app, but also as a Microsoft 365 app. I'm curious. I've just shared what I've seen and what I've heard. What do you see? Are your customers saying the same things? Do you agree or disagree with anything I've said in this video? Hit reply and let me know. Use the sharing links to let me know on Twitter or on LinkedIn. What do you think about creating apps for Microsoft 365 using Power Apps or Microsoft Teams apps? Let me know, drop a comment below. If you found this video useful, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe by smashing that big subscribe button below the video so you'll see when I publish more videos for full stack developers on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure. I'm Andrew Connell. Thank you very much for tuning in and I hope to see you in my next episode.