What would it take to get your boss to move to office 365?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Did I miss something about the early adopters? In what way is Microsoft barring them from the mid size plans. Not saying that they aren't but I've not heard about that.
AFAIK, if you signed up to an Enterprise plan, you can't then move to a Midsize Business plan. It's good that you recommend midsize companies to go for an Enterprise plan, and I fully understand and appreciate your reasons behind that. But Microsoft isn't recommending that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Except that makes no sense. On premise comes with tons if caveats. And things like not mixing plans - that's why we advise people against opting into those limited plans. That caveat doesn't exist with on premise Exchange and it doesn't exist with Hosted Exchange. So using that's a very odd comparison.
On premise Exchange doesn't come with Lync, Yammer, Sharepoint Enterprise, MS Office, AV, spam filtering, hosting, storage, the servers, the IT team to support them, backups, patch management, a support desk and direct access to the developers. Aren't those things caveats too?
I'd call them features not caveats. And if you want them, you can add them. My beef is simply with the pain of switching plans as your business circumstances change, not the lack of features.
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But the caveats you compare in the one are around those features, not around email. If you only compare in premise Exchange to Hosted Exchange those caveats don't exist.
And if you start with hosted Exchange (an E plan without the name) you retain the flexibility too to add and remove those things as if you were on premise.
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There are on premise equivalent.
Sticking with E plans is like buying Exchange. Then Lync. Then Sharepoint, etc. Total flexibility with some extra cost. Same in premise or hosted.
Getting the mid size plan is like using SBS on premise. You are capped on user count and you pay less for all features but you are trapped paying for all features on all CALs. You are locked in and can't move smoothly between plans with major rip and replace of AD.
I don't see the online equivalents being any more convoluted or their caveats being any different. We are just very used to the in premise quirks and forget about them because they are so common.
Just like in the old days, you could just avoid SBS and only deal with flexible, open plans. Now doing that means sticking to E plans. That's all. Mid size is just the hosted version of SBS.
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Midsize isn't exactly like SBS . Firstly, the names "Midsize" versus "Small". Secondly, the user limitations, 300 versus 75. Microsoft couldn't be more explicit that Midsize is for midsized companies, and SBS was for small companies.
As a 100 user company, I've never considered SBS. But Microsoft is advising me to use Midsize.
The question was "what would it take to get your boss to move to office 365". I'm just throwing out some reasons why my boss might be put off, and one of them is that Microsoft have a very complex product mix (compared with Google), and don't always make it easy to switch products if your circumstances change. The decision to buy Exchange for a 100 user company always used to be a no brainer. One vanilla product, and everyone bought it with very few exceptions. Office 365 takes a bit more consideration. I'm not saying I prefer onsite Exchange. I don't, and we'll be moving to O365 in due course, along with every other SMB. But I don't think it's perfect.
Why that makes me sound like I know sod all about IT, I don't know. Nothing I've said is false as far I'm aware?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Did I miss something about the early adopters? In what way is Microsoft barring them from the mid size plans. Not saying that they aren't but I've not heard about that.
AFAIK, if you signed up to an Enterprise plan, you can't then move to a Midsize Business plan. It's good that you recommend midsize companies to go for an Enterprise plan, and I fully understand and appreciate your reasons behind that. But Microsoft isn't recommending that.
Correct, you'd have to start from scratch if you want to move to a different tenant. Each plan type (Small, Medium, Enterprise) is a completely different type of tenant.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Except that makes no sense. On premise comes with tons if caveats. And things like not mixing plans - that's why we advise people against opting into those limited plans. That caveat doesn't exist with on premise Exchange and it doesn't exist with Hosted Exchange. So using that's a very odd comparison.
On premise Exchange doesn't come with Lync, Yammer, Sharepoint Enterprise, MS Office, AV, spam filtering, hosting, storage, the servers, the IT team to support them, backups, patch management, a support desk and direct access to the developers. Aren't those things caveats too?
I'd call them features not caveats. And if you want them, you can add them. My beef is simply with the pain of switching plans as your business circumstances change, not the lack of features.
If you go with an Enterprise tenant, it only takes a few clicks to switch plans for your users.
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One thing that gets overlooked if the financial consideration on how it is funded. An exchange deployment is usually a Capital Expendature (CapEx) and is then depreciated over time. In some cases, as long as 5 years, which is about the life span of the deployment. CapEx comes off the top line revenue based on the depeciation schedule. O365 is a subscription, and therefore, a direct expense and is written off immediately. Both have their advantages, and the CFO or Controller should be able to shed light on the best financial approach.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Midsize isn't exactly like SBS . Firstly, the names "Midsize" versus "Small". Secondly, the user limitations, 300 versus 75. Microsoft couldn't be more explicit that Midsize is for midsized companies, and SBS was for small companies.
As a 100 user company, I've never considered SBS. But Microsoft is advising me to use Midsize.
Changing the name and the size cap are purely superficial. The basics are identical. It's the "lock in" product set to catch small business just like SBS was.
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I don't consider such things as purely superficial.
On-site Exchange came in three versions: Small Business, Standard and Enterprise.
Office 365 comes in three versions: Small Business, Midsize Business and Enterprise.Rightly or wrongly, I see a direct link between those three, and it's different to your link. But I'm just a media guy, so what do I know
I'm sure I can't be the only idiot to be confused my Microsoft's product naming. -
@Carnival-Boy said:
The question was "what would it take to get your boss to move to office 365". I'm just throwing out some reasons why my boss might be put off, and one of them is that Microsoft have a very complex product mix (compared with Google), and don't always make it easy to switch products if your circumstances change. The decision to buy Exchange for a 100 user company always used to be a no brainer. One vanilla product, and everyone bought it with very few exceptions. Office 365 takes a bit more consideration.
I understand and agree, it is unnecessarily complicated. I do, however, feel that There are more options and more complicated ones dealing with in premise. Think about SBS, all the optional components, DAG, standard v enterprise, virtualization options, CALs, volume license agreements, server licenses, etc. that you have to think about.
And when compared to O365, Exchange only has one option hosted but many on premise. It is only when adding in other options in O365 that it gets complex and on premise for Lync, Sharepoint, MS Office has a lot of extra complexity too.
I agree that it is complex. But I don't sense that it is more complex. I think that it is simpler.
What managers may sense is that it is a complexity with which they don't have a decade of experience.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't consider such things as purely superficial.
On-site Exchange came in three versions: Small Business, Standard and Enterprise.
Office 365 comes in three versions: Small Business, Midsize Business and Enterprise.Rightly or wrongly, I see a direct link between those three, and it's different to your link.
You are comparing Exchange to Office 365 as a whole. You can't. It's either just Exchange (three options) to Hosted Exchange (one option) or all of volume licensing against all of subscription licensing (Office 365.)
When talking just Exchange, the Office 365 offering is super simple. $4/user/month, no levels or feature options.
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@scottalanmiller said:
You are comparing Exchange to Office 365 as a whole.
Well blame Microsoft for that. They've bundled Office with Exchange. I could go with hosted Exchange plus Office ProPlus to replicate my old on-site setup, but Microsoft makes that senseless from a financial point of view. They drew first blood in this!
Really, why do they need to have three different plans (not to mention separate Office subscription packages)? Why not just one?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
You are comparing Exchange to Office 365 as a whole.
Well blame Microsoft for that. They've bundled Office with Exchange. I could go with hosted Exchange plus Office ProPlus to replicate my old on-site setup, but Microsoft makes that senseless from a financial point of view. They drew first blood in this!
Really, why do they need to have three different plans (not to mention separate Office subscription packages)? Why not just one?
Not sure as to why. I agree that it is dumb. I think that the non-E plans should be discontinued. There should only be E plans and a la cart.
They are different though. It is still features being added. Like Small Prem has no AD or InfoPath. Medium adds those.
Hosted services partially seem more complex because the on premise add that in other ways. Like AD or no AD is determined outside of the on premise Exchange service.
You can bundle via Volume Licensing too.
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I think that they do the levels through a false sense of simplification. They are trying to guess which features are desired by companies of different sizes.
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It's like ordering McDonald's happy meals versus going a la carte. It's cheaper to order burger and fries with a Coke even if you don't actually want a Coke. I get confused there as well and it drives me mad. Maybe I really am an idiot
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That's a good example. McD's has 20 combo meals but everything except for the toys are also available a la carte. And even with 20 combos, each comes in three sizes.
And then you can substitute a shake for the soda!
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After I hand over my money at McDonald's I'll often say "oh, can I get a donut with that as well please" and they always say "sure, no problem". Microsoft would say "Sorry, donuts aren't available with your package. You'll need to cancel your order, queue up at another till and place your order all over again. Alternatively, you can get a muffin."
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Well sort of. At mcdonalds they would still make you have another transaction. And if you buy a burger and fries a la carte and then come back and buy a drink the next day they don't give you combo pricing, they make you pay a lot more.
The barrier to switching is that the ability to switch is an extra cost.
Don't know about the UK but here it is common to get a lower rate on airline tickets that can't be changed. But if you pay more you get flexible dates. Same concept. You get a discount for opting out if the account flexibility.
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The only big limitations are that you take all members of the order as the same (no per user customization) and you don't get a free migration between the plans.
My understanding is that the later is literally a technical limitation and they are working on it but can't fix it yet.
