What are the chances of you quitting your current employers but then being re-employed by them as a consultant through your own business for mega-bucks?
(I don't actually know what an MSP is, so I'm not sure if I've understood your post correctly).
What are the chances of you quitting your current employers but then being re-employed by them as a consultant through your own business for mega-bucks?
(I don't actually know what an MSP is, so I'm not sure if I've understood your post correctly).
I had a candidate turn up late and he never apologised. So I knew straight away that I wouldn't employ him. But annoyingly, I still spent half-an-hour going through the motions of an interview. Why did I do that?
This begs the question, if you know very early on that a candidate has failed an interview, do you end the interview early or do you go through the motions to avoid any embarrassment?
The paradox of choice. I'd be happier if Microsoft never released "Midsize Business" and I happily paid the extra for an Enterprise plan. But now I know the Midsize plan would save us several thousand pounds a year, I'm conflicted. Ignorance would be bliss. It feels like their marketing department has shoehorned a product in where it doesn't really fit.
Out of interest, how many 250+ user companies (the supposed target market for Enterprise plans) are using Office 365? It's a no brainer for SMBs, but for large enterprises with specialist IT teams, I can see that on-site Exchange "could" make more sense. Are you guys involved in 250+ user Office 365 rollouts? Is there a sweet spot in terms of user count where onsite becomes the best choice?
Banned by France:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/shortcuts/2014/apr/09/french-6pm-labour-agreement-work-emails-out-of-office
I think the new law prevents tech companies from forcing workers to check their e-mail outside of their contracted work hours. To be fair, I'm not obliged to work at home by anyone, I choose to, and I think it makes my working day more relaxing. You Americans work 50+ hours a week with hardly any holiday, don't you? I'm not sure you've got the balance right, but suspect France may be too far the other way. Having said that, given the choice, I'd rather live in France than the US.
If I was able to concentrate and work at 100%, I could easily do all my work within 35 hours a week. But I'd rather adopt a slightly slower pace, chat with colleagues, make cups of coffee, mess around on MangoLassi, and "work" for 45 hours. I fixed a server at home last night, but have just done some online grocery shopping at work, so I figure it all balances out in the end. The issue I have is with a number of colleagues who do grocery shopping at work but absolutely nothing at home.
I used to use Webroot's cloud based e-mail filtering service and it was awesome. By far the best solution that I found (I trialled several - Postini, Mimecast etc etc). I loved it. Unfortunately, they killed the product.
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."
It has two displays if you include the device itself as one display. That's how most laptop users I work with use their docking stations.
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
@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?
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.
I'm ordering one for our Technical Director. I quite fancy one myself, but I'm not sure what the advantages are over an Ultrabook?
What's your view on projectors versus televisions? A few years ago we replaced the projector in our training room with a 50 inch telly, and people complain it's too small. But you can get a 60 inch LED now for the price of a decent projector, and a 70 inch for a fair bit more. I'd prefer a television, as I find them simpler to operate and I like lots of HDMI connections. A 100 inch touch-screen monitor is probably a few years away for us.
It annoys me when people complain they can't see something and I ask them if they have glasses and they say "Yeah, but I never wear them at work".
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?
@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.
@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.
@JaredBusch said:
The cost of E3 is $20 and mid size business is $15. So to pay thousands more a year is a bit of an over reaction. You are paying for office rights, not exchange.
$5 per user per month. For a 100 users, that's $6,000 per year. 200 users is $12,000. In the UK, the difference between plans is $8.70 at current exchange rates, so even a 100 user shop will be paying over $10k pa extra. That's thousands in my book. Where's the misinformation?
@JaredBusch said:
One would think you are a media person not IT.
That's quite an insult. I'd rather you just called me an idiot, tbh.
@scottalanmiller said:
@alexntg said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Mid size also cannot mix plans.
Yep, so if you get a copier that needs to scan to email, you'll be paying full price instead of putting them on the $4 per month EOP1.
Yeah. Those are the kinds of caveats that people really don't think through.
What do you mean, mix plans? I think you've hit on a great reason why your boss might not want to move to Office 365. Too many caveats. With on-site Exchange there are no caveats. You get an awesome enterprise class e-mail system that is guaranteed to do everything an SMB might want, both now and in the future.
Again, it's the little things that annoy me. Microsoft introduced an awesome product in "Midsize Business" that is specifically designed for mid size businesses (as the name suggests). But it you were a loyal early adopter and signed up to an Enterprise plan before they released this product, Microsoft won't let you switch. EVER! You'll be paying thousands of dollars extra a year for the rest of your life. Why is that? It's like a punishment for being a loyal early adopter.
I think a boss should question whether he wants to trust all of his mission critical data to a company that treats its customers this way. Even if they're ok today, what if you don't like them in five years time. By then you'll have hundred of megabytes of data on their servers - it's going to be really difficult to switch to another provider. Does O365 come with any restrictions on how much subscription charges can rise per annum?
PS. I presume I won't have any problem setting up e-mail from copiers on the Midsize plan? I've googled but can't find any information. Is it just a case that I'd have to pay full price for an extra user for each copier? Honestly, it sometimes feels like you need a Masters degree in Microsoft licencing just to understand this stuff. That might be fine for you pros, but I'm a generalist trying to run a small manufacturing business here and could do without the hassle.
I can really see the appeal of the simplicity of Google Apps. It's an inferior product, but at least you know what you're getting.
Those are very cool. I love the Charlie Brown one. However, I'd never see my wallpaper. I always have programs open full screen on both monitors and never reboot my PC - so I never see my desktop.
@Dashrender said:
If you're keeping onsite Exchange, why not simply sell them the Office Pro Plus only version of O365 - It's $12/user/month - might as well save that $8/user/month if you're not going to use it.
In the UK, Pro Plus is GBP 10.10 per month and Midsize Business is GBP 9.80. So Midsize Business is actually cheaper, even though it includes loads of extra features. That seems a bit crazy? Another reason for not going with Pro Plus is I don't want any pain as and when I upgrade to hosted Exchange. I've been bitten by "changing plans" pain before.
I still find "Midsize Business" a really annoying name for a product though.
@Dashrender said:
Is the same true for machines that you purchase Intune with SA? So you have a Windows XP machine today, you buy Intune with SA which allows you to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Pro (or Enterprise if you wish). If you dump the SA portion of the subscription are you required to go back to XP on that computer? If that's the case, calling it SA was a bad decision as the rules would be different for two things with the same name.
As far as I know, you don't purchase Intune? There are no upfront costs. Just the monthly subscription. So you wouldn't be able to continue using the new Windows licence if you cancelled the subscription. If you could, you could just subscribe for one month, do the upgrade, then cancel.