We talk a lot at TRUE about leveraging the tools you already have at your fingertips to achieve security objectives, but if you return to your subscription to try to identify what you have versus what you may need, you may have found yourself confused trying to navigate all the new names and components. In fact, you may even have found yourself confused by a new title for the popular office suite. Last year, Microsoft announced that it was going to change the name from Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in an effort to centralize programs and make things less complicated. I sincerely hope you find it less complicated, but I’ve put together this guide as a quick reference to help you along. When considering whether or not to make the jump to Microsoft M365 and their offered cloud suite of subscriptions and licensing, it can become a daunting task, understanding what choices you have and what choices to make is enough to make anyone’s head spin.
There are several flavors of M365 to choose from. For the purposes of this guide, we will focus on Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise, although there are also plans for Educational and Home subscription plans.
Microsoft Business
The Microsoft Business model is geared more towards small to medium size businesses, and there are several subscriptions to choose from: Business basic, Business Standard and Business Premium. One major thing to consider with Business versions is that the maximum subscriptions are up to 300. Anything more and you will need to move towards the Enterprise model. Some plans offer a free upgrade license to Windows 10 as an upgrade from windows 7 or 8.1.
- Business Basic- (Formerly Office 365 Business essentials) Businesses that require Teams, cloud storage, important to note that desktop versions of office are NOT included, only web and mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are included. Services included are Exchange, One Drive, SharePoint and Teams.
- Business Standard- (Formally Office 365 Business premium) Businesses that require Office apps across devices plus business email, cloud file storage, online meeting and storage. Office apps included are; Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher (pc only) and Access (Pc only). Each user can install the Office apps on up to 5 PCs or Macs.
- Business Premium- (Formerly Microsoft 365 Business) Businesses that require everything Included in Business standard plus the advanced Cyber threat protection and device management. Each user can install the Office apps on up to 5 PCs or Macs.
Microsoft Enterprise
Microsoft Enterprise model is geared more towards Enterprise productivity and offers plans that provide additional business intelligence and analytics functionality. Enterprise plans include E3, E5 and F3 plans. Microsoft 365 for Enterprise is a set of licensing plans that offer increased levels of compliance and security management over Microsoft 365 for Business. They are designed for enterprise customers and those customers that have over 300 users.
Microsoft 365 is ideal for business models with security concerns and/or compliance needs. With Enterprise Mobility & Security included it utilizes services like Mobile device management and Windows Defender to keep your company, data and its employees secure. Microsoft 365 is also a good option for companies who would like to simplify their management and budgeting costs by combining applications and services like Email, Office suites, collaboration and security into central license and management portal.
Microsoft has been redesigning their sometimes-complex web of services into a more friendly structure of services that allow you to choose the best options in one managed package. Moving forward, these user-friendly packages will allow you to make a better decision when aligning your company with the features that Microsoft 365 has to offer.
Here at True Digital Security, we pride ourselves by staying on top of these ever-changing suites of services that Microsoft has to offer. As a Microsoft partner we continually stay on top of these services, so we can fully understand and assist our clients in making a better business decision based on your business needs and what each package has to offer. Please feel free to request a consultation with any of our team members if you are interested in learning more about any of these services and what TRUE and Microsoft has to offer.