What is Microsoft Office 365 and how much will it cost?

• Hall Fabrications (see what I have done there?) are a small engineering company which started 5 years ago. They currently use email provided free with their website, which is okay but being an older system doesn’t give them true email synchronisation between their mobile phones and desktop PCs. It is a constant source of frustration as sent items on the mobile don’t appear in Outlook and vide versa. Additionally, they can’t share calendars, set out of office messages from Outlook and all the email files are stored on their PC’s meaning that in the event of a crash they could lose email history.

  The MD’s laptop was her old home laptop, and while she did upgrade to Windows 10 when the free update was available, it is running a very old version of Microsoft Office Word, excel, etc which was “acquired” at some point from a well-meaning friend. The other PC’s being newer have differing but legitimate versions of Microsoft Office but are relatively up to date.

  Last and not least, their salesman is often out on the road and setting email frustrations aside, would like to be able to communicate via chat to the office. Video calling might be useful too, but not essential and certainly not worth paying extra for.

  Suggested solution

  All 5 require an email mailbox and Instant Messaging capability. 4 out of 5 of these have legitimate versions of Microsoft Office 2016 and 2019 (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc). All PC’s are Windows 10

  This fits perfectly with 2 “bundles” that Microsoft offer specifically for small businesses.

  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials). This includes email, some online storage, a product called SharePoint (which warrants an article by itself) and Microsoft Teams for chat and video confrencing. This is priced at £3.80 per user per month and will suit 4 users perfectly
  • For the MD, she needs an up to date (and legit) version of Word, Excel, Outlook, etc. For her Microsoft 365 Business Standard (formerly Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium) is the solution. In essence, the same as Business Basic but with the addition of up to date versions of Microsoft Office to replace her ageing, creaking and legally dubious copy. This is priced at £9.40 per user per month

  Scenario 1 cost

  Thankfully, Microsoft allow you to mix and match these bundles, so the total subscription cost to the business of this package would be £37.60 per month plus VAT.

Kelly Communications are a PR agency that started just 18 months ago. Already they have 22 staff and associates spread all over the UK and a couple of those in Ireland. As each person has come into the business, they have enthusiastically introduced their favourite “pet” software, so consequently they operate Gmail for email, Dropbox Basic for sharing files, Slack for Instant Messaging and Google hangouts for meetings. It all works of a fashion .. but they are now feeling the consequences of using personal accounts, lack of security of files, low storage space and there is a general feeling that nothing is “joined up” … which of course it isn’t!

Although the staff have newish laptops and versions of Microsoft Office, the associates use their own laptops. All but one (who is a Google Docs fan) have Microsoft Office, but a couple use the Office 365 Home Subscription which as well as not having all the requisite features … is for home use (naughty!).

In this scenario, the brief is to bring all these functions onto a platform that will “do it all”. Google’s GSuite is a strong contender here and has a couple of enthusiastic advocates within the company, but most (as life-long users or Outlook, Word, Excel, etc) are leaning towards the Microsoft offering as “what they know”.

Suggested solution

All 22 require a mailbox. Additionally, instant messaging, video conferencing, collaborative working and online storage are a must. SharePoint provides enhancements to the online storage with more advanced security for files and folders. The Directors are also interested in creating workflows and forms for customers and their team to automate certain functions and create feedback possibilities. 3 laptops belonging to the associates also require Microsoft Office applications which will integrate with all this.

Again, this can all be accommodated with the 2 bundles we mentioned before in Scenario 1

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials). This includes email, some online storage, a product called SharePoint (which warrants an article by itself) and Microsoft Teams for chat and video confrencing. This is priced at £3.80 per user per month and will suit 19 out of the 22 users
• For the 3 associates with no or unsuitable versions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365 Business Standard (formerly Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium)  is the solution. In essence, the same as Microsoft 365 Business Basic but with the addition of up to date versions of Microsoft applications. This is priced at £9.40 per user per month

Scenario 2 cost

As before, Microsoft allow you to mix and match these bundles, so the total subscription cost to the business of this package would be £100.40 per month plus VAT.