What would it take to get your boss to move to office 365?
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@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.
You can do un authenticated SMTP to office 365 on the small business plans, you just have to set up a connector and restrict it to an IP or IP block. I have ours restricted to a /29
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@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.
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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.
If you only want exchange it is only $8 a month per user for E1.compare the same things. Don't lash out left right and center with misinformation. One would think you are a media person not IT.
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@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.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@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.
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?
Using the options of one to act like caveats of a non comparable product doesn't work. It would be like if I compared the limitations of Exchange to simply not having email at all. Sure, except it has one caveat - I have no email.
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@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.
If you only want exchange it is only $8 a month per user for E1.compare the same things. Don't lash out left right and center with misinformation. One would think you are a media person not IT.
Exchange is only $4. E1 is Exchange, Lync, Sharepoint and Yammer.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
$5 per user per month. For a 100 users, that's $6,000 per year. 200 users is $12,000. I
Yes it is 33% more for the "full" package. You actually do get a little more with the E3 but it is minor. But what you pay for is flexibility which in any organization of that size you would expect to pay the difference.
For example: any user that doesn't need MS Office immediately drops from $20 to $8. That is a big potential savings.
And any service accounts or users who need only email are just $4. That's a really big savings.
Maybe you have an org where these things don't make sense. But typically a Cosby this big won't really see a cost savings or very little if one in the mid size plans.
And with the E plans, individual users can move fluidly between plans as the needs change. No lock in.
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Yes. Copiers can have their own email but yes you have to pay for an account. So on mid size that is $15 per copier and on E it is $4.
But few copiers support modern security for email so don't be surprised if you don't need an email relay to handle the security.
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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.
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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.
