The company plans to block users from obtaining paid apps through the stores starting in April.
Microsoft this week started notifying customers of some major changes to the Microsoft Stores for Business and Education.
As @hoyty reported on Twitter, Microsoft Store for Business customers reported receiving an update on March 11saying that all paid apps will no longer “be available for acquisition” from the Stores for Business and Education. The ban will take effect on April 14, 2021.
Users who already purchased apps from these two stores will still be able to use them, and updates will be available. At least, that is what Microsoft’s note to users has promised. But no new paid apps will be available in these stores as of April 14.
Microsoft says that after the April ban date, users who want to buy new applications or licenses will need to go directly to the app publishers.
About the Microsoft Store
The Microsoft Store is Microsoft’s online app store. Microsoft built the Store into Windows 10. The company started testing a couple of companion digital stores back in 2015. The Microsoft Store for Business and the Microsoft Store for Education were for admins who wanted to make applications available to their users outside of the normal Windows Store channel in Windows 10.
These sector-specific Stores allow admins to make Store apps available to their users for volume acquisition and distribution. They also provide a way for custom line-of-business distribution only inside a particular organization
The company’s note to customers also says that access to the Store for Business and Store for Education is going to be more difficult. In future, only users who have an existing Azure Active Directory account will be able to log in. The overseers in Redmond will no longer permit anonymous browsing of the two Stores.
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