Microsoft has announced the packaging of their Office 365 SaaS collaboration platform along with Windows 10 and their Mobility and Security cloud features together as Microsoft 365. As I mentioned in my earlier blog post touching on this release, Microsoft 365 includes the Windows 10 operating systems and Office 365, which is an Azure based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform which enables companies and organizations, big or small to provide their employees with the tools they need to work together in an easy and efficient manner. No matter where their users are- anywhere in the world, they can work together with all the commonly used methods of sharing and coauthoring information- and then some. They are also capable of choosing the level of functionality they desire when they subscribe to the platform.
There are two choices for licensing Microsoft 365: Business and Enterprise.
The business license is available for companies and organizations up to 300 users, and includes Office 365 for Business along with licenses for users for Windows 10. The Enterprise Microsoft 365 office also includes Windows 10, and allows a choice between an E3 or E5 license of Office 365 along with the Security and Mobility Suite.
Enterprise Mobility and Security
The Enterprise Mobility and Security suite enables a large range of connectivity between Office 365 and Azure, especially the Enterprise functionality of Azure Active Directory which allows business to easily manage security across multiple platforms- as well as enable many other features and services in Azure to easily allow remote connectivity and mobile device usage, while connecting to Enterprise databases and maintain security across all connections and devices.
Such security features are essential in today’s increasing under attack corporate sector. Quite smartly, Microsoft has now with one license, packaged these security features with Office 365 and Windows 10. This means that you can pair the previously mentioned capabilities with Exchange Online’s ability to scan for spam and malware and the capability to securely share information in SharePoint and One Drive for Business while allowing Administrators to control how this is done. With an E5 License for Office 365, Power BI pro can allow reporting on all the activity of your users and the data they create, giving complete insights on virtually every aspect of your data and how people are interacting with your platform.
Office 365
Office 365 contains a full suite of business productivity tools that allow end users multiple ways to create content, distribute content, communicate directly, automate their own workflows, keep track of their schedules and tasks, and collaborate on ideas. As the employees in your company utilize programs like PowerPoint and Sway to create presentations, they can collaborate in separate workspaces like the chat based Microsoft Teams or Office 365 Groups, leverage the automation tools in Flow and Microsoft Teams to assist them in their workload, and ask questions, make announcements and foster communication in the social media format for Yammer. Users can synchronize Microsoft Word to their One Drive while they create formal documents to keep data securely saved in the cloud-without having to upload it after it is saved.
Of course these are just a few examples, but when you combine the functionality of all of these solutions, the uses for Office 365 are exponentially scaled, as is the reduction of work tasks when it is properly applied.
For administrators, beyond being empowered with control over the security of this platform, the ability of SharePoint to manage data via lists and Document Libraries, and the interactive capabilities of Flow combined with PowerBI and Azure Hosted SQL Databases allows the easy collection and reporting of data from virtually every single program in Office 365- along with the ability to analyze that data with easy to create reports that can be securely shared.
Windows 10
All of the previous features are accessible from Android, OSX and iOS devices, but with Microsoft 365, they are packaged with licenses for Windows 10, which can run on mobile devices, laptops or desktop computers alike.
Microsoft has been working tirelessly to continue to march the Windows platform forward through the age of the Internet, making it more responsive, giving user more ways to access and interact with applications from more devices, and integrating Cortana’s search capabilities into the Operating System for much more efficient knowledge finding. All of this is combined with an intensified approach to security to make Windows 10 by far the most stable, safe and easiest to interact with version of Windows yet.
Subscription Pricing
The combination of Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility and Security is a bundling of features that are unmatched in the industry when it comes to combining data management, security and user productivity. The release of Microsoft 365 is yet another step that we have seen from Microsoft to make it even easier to adopt their products and services. It is all the great stuff we’ve been seeing coming from Microsoft over the past few years, bundled together in the form of an easy to price, easy to implement and very powerful single license package.
Interested in learning more about Microsoft 365? Click here to hear what Microsoft themselves have to say about their new consolidated platform!
