You've decided to go Office 365. Of course you have. All the cool kids are doing it
these days. But what licences do you need? Is it Office 365 or is it Microsoft 365?
Is it Business or Enterprise? Essentials, Premium, E1, E5, A1, F1? OR is it
Enterprise Mobility? OK. Let's tackle it.
Welcome back to the Pro Tech Show - the place for tech, tips, and advice for IT
pros and decision makers. If that seems like your kind of thing then hit that
subscribe button. Today we're navigating through
Microsoft's cloud licensing options. Which Office 365 or Microsoft 365
subscription is best for you? First, let's talk about the two main packages.
We've got Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility and Security. Office 365 is
productivity focused, and it gives you a familiar collection of applications and
services. On the apps side you've got your Word, your Excel, your PowerPoint; and on
the services side you've got the likes of Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive;
your collaboration, your document management, messaging, telephony, and the
like. Now by the time you've made your way through all of the Office 365
offerings, you'll probably find that it covers the vast majority of business
services people use across organizations day to day. The other big package of
products is Enterprise Mobility and Security. As the name suggests, it's
focused on the security side of things - protecting your data and your devices
against the modern threat landscape. Now it can be used independently of Office
365, but the two are complimentary. Office 365 is giving access to your data
on any device, anywhere. Enterprise Mobility and Security is about
protecting that data when it's on any device, anywhere. It's worth mentioning
that you don't have to buy the full package. You can buy a lot of the
individual components separately. In fact some of the components of Enterprise
Mobility and Security are in fact product packages themselves, Azure
Active Directory for example contains an ever-expanding list of Identity and
Access Management services. So you can pick what you need, but if you're going
to be using a few of them it might be better value just to buy the package. So
where does Microsoft 365 fit in? Well, Microsoft 365 is kind of like an
all-encompassing product suite. It includes Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility
and Security, and Windows 10. Wow wow wow, hang on! Windows 10? that's not
a cloud service! True, but the idea is that Microsoft 365 is kind of like your
one-stop licence. You buy that for every user and that covers you for pretty much
everything. Bearing in mind that EM&S includes a Windows Server CAL, and that
Office 365 Enterprise comes with on-premises access rights that cover you for
Exchange, SharePoint, and Skype for Business, and the like; and it really does
cover most cloud and on-premises services. In fact some of the services
included in EM&S are actually on-premises products. Advanced Threat Analytics and
Microsoft Identity Manager are prime examples. If you want to move software to
an OPEX model, or you want a way to break the cost down per head rather than an
amorphous blob of IT spend; then this can be a good way to do it. And because it's
a cloud subscription you get the added advantage that you're always licensed
for the latest version. This can help avoid the trap that some businesses find
themselves in where they want to change one little thing, but to change that one
thing means everyone needs new licences, and that one little thing becomes really
expensive as a result. This is particularly helpful when moving to
cloud services because they tend to move quite quickly, and Microsoft require you
to keep your end up to date as well. This is something people quite often miss and
then they end up in trouble over it later.
There are definitely advantages to getting everything as a single per-user
licence, and the cost for all of those services can look quite good, actually - you get a lot for it.
But there's also a danger there. You can quite easily end up
buying a whole bunch of services that you don't actually use. So have a look at
it. Do the numbers, but keep a realistic idea in your head of what you're really
going to be using to make sure you don't overspend. I should point out that
everything in that diagram I showed you is subject to change. Microsoft are
constantly releasing, retiring, and changing products in cloud-land. For
example by the time you watch this video Intune might be no more. The current plan
is that Intune and Config Manager are going to be merged to form a new
offering called Endpoint Manager. So the exact products will change, but the
overall theme of each package should remain roughly the same. Now you know where
Office 365, Enterprise Mobility and Security, and Microsoft 365 all fit
together; what about the different variations? Well, for Office 365 and
Microsoft 365, the different variations can broadly be split into one of two
camps: you've got Business and you've got Enterprise. The Business plans are all
named with the word "business" in them. So you've got "Business Essentials",
"Business Premium" or just plain "Business". the Enterprise plans are named with "E" for
"Enterprise", and a number. So you've got E1, E3, and E5. They really like the odd
numbers, no even ones at the minute. You can line the Office 365 subscriptions up
a little. Business Essentials is roughly the equivalent of E1. They both
give you access to the standard set of online services. Business Premium is
roughly the equivalent of E3. They add on the Office client apps as well.
There's an E5 which adds on additional security services and telephony, but
there's no Business equivalent of that - it's Enterprise only. There is also an
Office 365 Business which lines up with Office 365 ProPlus
on the Enterprise side. This gives you the client applications but no services
other than OneDrive. it's also worth noting that when looking at the
Microsoft 365 plans, Microsoft 365 Business does include services. So
despite the similar name, it incorporates "office 365 Business Premium" rather than
"Office 365 Business". As a general rule the Enterprise plans add a few extra
additional features compared to the Business plans. If you're familiar with
Microsoft's on-premises products, then the Business plans are the equivalent of
everyone having standard CALs. The Enterprise plans are as you can guess,
the equivalent of people additionally having the Enterprise CALs. It's roughly
the same sort of feature difference. There are a couple of other big
differences that could push you towards the Enterprise subscriptions. Firstly, the
Business subscriptions top out at 300 users. So if you've got more than 300
people in your organization, you're going to have to buy at least some Enterprise
subscriptions. Another gotcha to watch out for is that the Office 365
Business plans that include the client apps do not cover shared computer
activation. This is a feature that allows you to bypass the normal 5 computers per
user activation limit. This can be important if your staff are regularly
hot-desking, sharing computers, or if you use a Remote Desktop
or Citrix farm. Enterprise and ProPlus subscriptions of Office 365 do include
this feature. And just to make matters more confusing, so does Microsoft 365
Business that's "Microsoft 365 Business" but not "Office 365 Business". Yeah. This
is why people exist whose entire job is just to understand Microsoft licensing!
Other than that, the Enterprise subscriptions cost nearly twice as much
as the Business subscriptions. So if you don't need the extra features, you
don't use shared devices, and you've got less than 300 users: save the cash. Go
Business. So that shows you where the Business and Enterprise versions of
Office 365 fit, and by extension than Microsoft 365 versions. But what about
the As and the Fs? Well, the "A" is for Education customers, so you're either
gonna buy them or you aren't. Think "A" for "academic". They roughly line up the
Enterprise equivalents. You've got A1 which roughly lines up with E1. A3 for E3,
and A5 for E5. Now they don't quite line up, there are some differences. There's a
few Education-specific features, and when we say A1 these days we normally mean A1 Plus.
That actually does come with the Office client so they don't line up
directly, but roughly. The main difference of course is the pricing. The Education
variants are a lot cheaper, and in some cases free. So what about the "F"
subscriptions? Well, at the minute there's only one: F1. It's "F" for "first line"
workers who don't use a computer for most of their day job. As such, these
licences are quite restricted, but also significantly cheaper than the normal
ones. Compared to Enterprise they're about half the price. A user with an F1
licence can access the same sort of services as a user with an E1 licence,
but they can only use the web apps - they can't use a full desktop applications,
even if they buy them elsewhere. Now they can use a mobile apps, but only in a
small device. They can't use them on a device with a screen greater than 10.1
inches. They get an Exchange Online mailbox, but it's limited to 2 GB. They
can join Teams meetings, but they can't create them. So it's not really suitable
for a desk-based worker who spends a lot of time on a computer, but for
someone who's out and about, maybe on the shop floor; well, it's half the price of
an E1 licence. Hopefully this video has helped you navigate the ever-growing
collection of cloud licensing suites. If you found it useful then hit that like
button. If you'd like more detail on anything then drop it in the comments
and I could do it as another video. Speaking of another video, I'll have
another one up in a couple of weeks time. If you want to be the first to see it,
smash that subscribe button, and use the bell icon for notifications. Thanks for
watching, guys. See you next time!