When looking into Microsoft Office 365 plans it can become a little confusing understanding the difference between them. Once you have made your decision, it may be even harder to project the impact on your London-based business.
In this blog article, we’ll be comparing Microsoft Office Business plans against Enterprise plans.
Firstly, it’s important to note that a Microsoft Office 365 account cannot mix “Business” class plans and “Enterprise” (E) class plans in the same account. However, you can mix license types within the class of an account. For example, you can mix E1 plans and E3 plans in the same account, but you can’t mix E3 and Small Business plans in the same account. This fact makes choosing the class of plan for your business critical to your Microsoft 365 migration.
The Business plans
The three Business plans basically combine the three features below:
- Hosted Exchange (email platform)
- Team sites (online file server)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, etc.)
The “Business Basic” plan includes #1 and #2 only. The “Business Standard” plan includes all of them. Finally, the “Business Premium” plan includes all three, plus additional services. For more details on each of these plans, please see below.
Office 365 Business Basic
The Business Essentials plan costs £4.90 per user, per month. This plan includes:
- Email with 50GB mailbox
- 1 TB cloud storage and sharing
- Video conferencing
- Office Online
- Web and mobile apps
Office 365 Business Standard
Next up is the very plainly named Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan, at £10.30 per user, per month. This plan includes all the features of the Business Basic plan with additional features, such as:
- Fully installed Office on PC/Mac
- Hosting webinars and live events
Office 365 Business Premium
Lastly for £18.10 per user, per month, the Business Premium plan combines the features of both plans above, plus these extra security features:
- Endpoint security
- Access controls
- Data protection tools
The Enterprise Plans
There are four Microsoft 365 enterprise plans, E1, E3 and E5. The most popular of these are the E1 and E3 plans. E1 plans are £8.20 per user, per month and E3 plans are £22.00 per user, per month. The biggest difference between the two is the inclusion of 5 Office licenses with E3 plans, as well as encryption and data loss prevention tools.
The E1 plan resembles an Enterprise version of the Business Basic plan – focusing on the online features and not coming with Microsoft Office licenses. Similarly, the E3 plan mirrors the Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan.
Enterprise plans include some capabilities that aren’t included in the regular Business class plans, such as:
- Administrators are able to track obsolete/outdated versions of Microsoft Office that users may be working with
- Adding the ability to do legal holds on mailboxes and enforce data loss prevention
- Adding the eDiscovery centre to SharePoint for legal discovery activities
- Implementing group policy that focuses on configuring Microsoft Office on users computers
If you have any comments or questions regarding Microsoft Office 365, please contact totality services.