Microsoft Announces Major Changes to Office 365 for Small and Midsized Businesses
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The three new plans are:
Office 365 Business Essentials. This replacement for Office 365 Small Business provides the core Office 365 cloud services—Exchange Online-based email and calendaring with 50 GB of storage, SharePoint Online-based cloud storage and file sharing, Lync Online-based online meetings, IM, and video conferencing, Office Online, and more. It will cost $5 per user per month ($60/year), the same price as Office 365 Small Business today, but is a better value thanks to the inclusion of additional services like Yammer and Active Directory support, and a new cap of 300 users, up from 25 before.
Office 365 Business. This replacement for Office 365 ProPlus (I think) provides access to the full Office applications—Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Publisher—along with 1 TB of OneDrive for Business cloud storage. It will cost $8.25 per user per month ($99/year), a savings of $45 per user per year, and has a cap of 300 users. You might think of this offering as a replacement/combination of both Office 365 ProPlus and the standalone version of OneDrive for Business.
Office 365 Business Premium. This replacement for Office 365 Small Business Premium and Midsized Business provides everything in both Office 365 Business and Business Essentials, so it's the full suite of online services plus Office and the OneDrive for Business storage. It will cost $12.50 per user per month ($150/year), a savings of $30 per user per year over Office 365 Midsized Business (and the same price as Small Business Premium today). And it is a better value thanks to the inclusion of additional services like Yammer and Active Directory support. (The 300 user cap is unchanged for Midsized Business, but up from the 25 user limit in Small Business Premium.)
Customers on each plan will now be able to upgrade to Office 365 Enterprise plans as their businesses grow, Microsoft notes, adding a new level of flexibility. You will also be able to migrate between a different small- and midsized Business plans, or add solutions like Project, Visio, Dynamics CRM Online and more.
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Great. I've only just got my head round the old plans.
It sounds like they've listened to my complaints on MangoLassi and made the changes I recommended though, so that's good.
I was planning on signing up to Small Business for my personal use this weekend, just to get the 1TB of storage. Will that still be offered on Business Essentials?
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So how is Office 365 Business Premium different from Enterprise then? other than the 300 user cap?
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I presume the difference is that you can't mix plans, same as the difference between Midsize and Enterprise. So you can't have just Exchange users within your plan, for example, like you can by having some users on E1 some on E3.
I thought you could upgrade to Enterprise from other plans now though, but they're saying that's a new feature?
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Considering it's $12.50/month/user for everything on the 'small' edition vs $20 on the enterprise, having everyone on the same plan probably isn't an issue. Unless I'm missing something else/
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There'll be a catch, I'm sure. Otherwise, you'd be annoyed if you'd just signed up for Enterprise.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
There'll be a catch, I'm sure. Otherwise, you'd be annoyed if you'd just signed up for Enterprise.
Yep.. I have a customer who did just that!
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I just signed up for Enterprise last month too!
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I'm still confused between Business Premium and Enterprise E3. There is just such a big difference in price (basically, double).
<sigh>
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm still confused between Business Premium and Enterprise E3. There is just such a big difference in price (basically, double).
$12.50 to $20 is not quite double.
What you get are the big enterprise features that most people do not want or need.
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GBP 7.50 to GBP 14.70 here in the UK.
I believe you can mix plans now, is that right?
So I could have 30 Business Premium, 30 E1 and 30 E3 within the same tenant? -
@Carnival-Boy said:
GBP 7.50 to GBP 14.70 here in the UK.
I believe you can mix plans now, is that right?
So I could have 30 Business Premium, 30 E1 and 30 E3 within the same tenant?I believe so, but I have not tested that anywhere yet.
I know you can mix within the two types freely, but I have not had any setup where I cold actually purchase between the two yet.
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In case anyone is curious, this is the difference between them. Strictly Enterprise level features that I have never seen needed in the SMB market.
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Plus you get Access with Enterprise but not with Business Premium for some random reason.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
GBP 7.50 to GBP 14.70 here in the UK.
I believe you can mix plans now, is that right?
So I could have 30 Business Premium, 30 E1 and 30 E3 within the same tenant?I am running 3 Business Premium licenses with 65 E1 licenses. Not sure if that helps at all.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Plus you get Access with Enterprise but not with Business Premium for some random reason.
What is this Access thing you speak of?
(Read that: Access needs to die in a fire)
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I'm trying to kill it off here, but it's not easy. There are always a couple of annoying users in any organisation who think it's great and fancy themselves as amateur software developers. Normally leaving me to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong.
