Microsoft
Microsoftmichaelmeyer25 Sorry for the delay in answering. Here're some answers for you:
Q: How do we now buy apps?
A: You can work directly with the ISV or vendor to purchase their app. Well before this blog, all vendors and ISVs that had ever published even a single app that had a cost of more than "free" were notified that they would need to pull their app from the Store for Business or change the cost to "free". Some opted to change the cost to "free" and add a subscription service (think subscriptions like XBOX or Netflix). Some opted to pull their app. Note that paid apps are still available in the "consumer" Microsoft Store.
Q: How do we publish those Apps in MEM?
A: Apps that you get from a vendor can be deployed as LOB apps (think Adobe or VPN/security software that you might be deploying).
Q: How do we make sure that no public apps get installed by users manually? (Assuming I have to block the MS store entirely, however how do we get our license provisions?)
A: For most apps, users must be admins to download and install on the device. As long as the user is not an admin, they should not be able to install public apps. If they are admins, there are much larger issue at hand. You can still block the "consumer" Microsoft Store, and for now, Store for Business is still alive and well. You can still link Intune to it and push apps from it. But the apps have to be "free". License provisioning is not a function of Intune. I recommend that you assign apps to Groups, and as you provision a license to a user, you add them to that group.
Q: What does MS suggest is the path forward?
A: Our recommendation for a path forward is above in the blog: we recommend using Windows Package Manager. For more info on WPM, see here: Windows Package Manager | Microsoft Docs
Other comments:
>We liked the private store, it linked straight into MEM, we would purchase and make self service work through the private store. It would keep apps up to date in a controlled way so that people could not access the public store.
Joe: This is still the case on the forward path. Just like for a LOB app you would go: Apps > Windows > Add > LOB...and deploy the app, there will be a similar function for Windows Package Manager private repository apps. Once it's added, you can push it to users as optional or required. If required, it'll install automatically. If optional, they'll be able to use Company Portal to pull it down. And admins can keep these up-to-date like you do for your other apps. Some apps may update automatically via Windows Update (like in-box apps).
-Hope this helps