Microsoft Office 365 Comparison

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If you're looking for the latest Microsoft Office feature, then office 365 is for you. In this guide, you will learn about Microsoft Office 365 versions. Click here for more.
Microsoft Office 365 Comparison

Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription-based version of Microsoft Office. It offers you all the tools you need to be more creative and achieve what matters with Outlook, Word, OneDrive, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Yammer, and more. It is a platform and a place for you to create, communicate and collaborate and get great work done.

With Office 365 subscription, you will get all the latest Office apps, both the desktop and online versions, and receive timely updates when they are released. With OneDrive, you can get all the work you do to be available to you from anywhere, and to others when you collaborate and share.

If you are looking forward to migrating to the cloud, choosing Office 365 license would be a wise move and a critical step to getting things done the right way. There are multiple options for small, medium, and enterprise businesses that want to get the best and most value from Microsoft products.

Office 365 Plan Options

Microsoft Office 365 is available in a variety of plans to best meet the need of every organization.

Each office 365 plan includes several individual services such as Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. 

For you to have a better understanding of the Office 365 service family and the plans available, have a look at the table below as we are going to discuss it;

Microsoft Office 365 editions

Office 365 Business Family

The business plan for Office 365 has three plans;

Office 365 Business Essentials

This plan of Office 365 is compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 Service Pack 1, and the two most recent versions of macOS. All languages are included. Included in this plan is;

  • Email hosting with 50 GB mailbox and custom email domain address
  • Hub for teamwork to connect your teams with Microsoft Teams
  • The web version of Office applications; Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote
  • File storage and sharing with 1TB of OneDrive storage
  • Online meetings and video conferencing for up to 250 people
  • 24/7 phone and web support

Office 365 Business

This plan of Office 365 is compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 Service Pack 1, and the two most recent versions of macOS. All languages are included. Included in this plan is;

  • Desktop versions of Office applications; including Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote (plus Access and Publisher for PC only)
  • One license covers full-installed- Always up to date with Office apps on 5 phones, 5 tablets, and 5 PCs or Macs per user.
  • You are automatically updated with new features and capabilities
  • 24/7 phone and web support

Office 365 Business Premium

This plan of Office 365 is compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 Service Pack 1, and the two most recent versions of macOS. All languages are included. Included in this plan is;

  • Email hosting with 50 GB mailbox and custom email domain address
  • A hub for teamwork to connect with teams using Microsoft Teams
  • The desktop version of Office applications, including Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, plus Access and Publisher for PC only.
  • File storage and sharing with 1TB of OneDrive storage. 
  • One license covers fully-installed and always up to date with Office apps on 5 phones, 5 tablets, and 5 PCs or Macs per user.
  • 24/7 phone and web support

Office 365 Enterprise Family

Under this family of Office 365, there are four plans;

Office 365 Enterprise E1

This plan comes with the following package;

  • A web-based version of Office apps and business services. Office desktop apps are not included
  • You will get an email, file storage and sharing, meetings, and instant messaging
  • There are five layers of security and monitoring, that helps to keep your data safe.
  • There is a guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime

Office 365 Enterprise E3

This plan comes with the following package;

  • It includes all full desktop versions of Office 365 apps
  • Each user can install Office mobile apps on 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, and 5 phones.
  • It includes five layers of security and monitoring to help in keeping customer data safe.
  • It helps you reduce IT costs and move to the cloud on your terms
  • There is guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime and 24/7 support from Microsoft

Office 365 Enterprise E5

This plan comes with the following package;

  • Includes all full desktop versions of Office apps
  • You will get advanced security, analytics as well as voice capabilities
  • You will be able to guard your mailbox with mailbox using Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection
  • You will be able to make, receive and transfer calls using the Phone System
  • There is guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime and 24/7 support from Microsoft

Office 365 Enterprise F1

This plan comes with the following package;

  • Includes web-based Office apps and business services. Note that Office desktop apps are not included.
  • You will get an email, file storage and sharing, meetings, and instant messaging.
  • You will get five layers of security and monitoring, to help keep your data safe.
  • There is a guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime

Office 365 Education Family

Under this family package, there are two plans;

Office 365 Education

A chance to get Office 365 free for your entire school, this plan gives you a chance to improve classroom and school collaboration using free productivity tools. You will need to verify that you are an accredited academic institution to take advantage of the free offers. 

Students have a choice of 3 options, which include;

Office 365 A1

This is a completely free online version of Office. It comes with email and video conferencing and a customized hub for class teamwork using Microsoft teams. There are compliance tools and full information protection. 

Office applications included are Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. You will also get services including exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Sway, Forms, Stream, Flow, PowerApps, School Data Sync, and Yammer.

There are compliance solutions with a unified eDiscovery center. You will also benefit from rights management, data loss prevention, and encryption.

You will be able to create enterprise videos and manage and share videos securely across organizations. You will also benefit from app development without writing code, to extend your business data quickly with custom web and mobile apps. 

Office 365 A3

This plan features a small monthly subscription. It has all the features of A1, plus full access to the Office desktop apps and additional management and security tools. 

You will get office applications including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher (For PC), and Access (for PC).  Services that you get include; exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Sway, Forms, Stream, Flow, PowerApps, School Data Sync, Bookings, and Yammer

The Office apps will work on up to 5 tables and 5 phones per user. You will get Microsoft teams, which is a digital hub that integrates the conversations, content, and apps for your school needs to be more collaborative and engaged.

There are class and Staff notebooks as well as professional learning community groups. You will benefit from self-grading quizzes with forms. You will make full use of digital storytelling using Sway.

You will be able to inform and engage with communication sites and team sites throughout your intranet using SharePoint. Additionally, you will benefit from rights management, data loss and prevention, and encryption.

Parents, guardians, and students can schedule appointments with faculty online using Microsoft Bookings.

Office 365 Cloud App Security will help you access risks and gain insights into potential threats. MyAnalytics will offer you advanced personal analytics.

Office 365 A5

With this plan, you will get all the features of A3, plus Microsoft’s best in class intelligence security management, advanced compliance, and analytics systems.

You will get office applications including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher (For PC), and Access (for PC).  Services that you get include; exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Sway, Forms, Stream, Flow, PowerApps, School Data Sync, Bookings, PowerBI, and Yammer

You will benefit from Microsoft teams, which is a smart digital hub integrating conversations, content, and apps your school needs to be more collaborative and engaged. 

Unified eDiscovery center will help you with compliance solutions. You will benefit from app development without writing code, to extend business and data quickly using the custom web and mobile apps. 

You stand to benefit from workflow automation across apps and services to automate business processes without writing any code. Make plans and schedules of your daily tasks using Microsoft Teams.

Communication and task management between faculty and students is enhanced using Microsoft Koizala. With the email of 100GB mailbox and unlimited personal cloud storage, all your data needs are catered for.

You will be able to access risk and gain vital insights into all potential threats with the use of Office 365 cloud app security. Customer Lockbox will help you to control how you access your mailbox.

You will be able to protect against sophisticated threats such as phishing and zero-day malware and get the ability to investigate and remediate attacks and post breaches. Office 365 environment will give you enhanced visibility and control.

Office 365 for Government Institutions

Office 365 government plans are designed for the unique needs of governmental institutions. They provide all features and capabilities of Office 365 in the segmented government cloud community, to enable organizations to meet U.S compliance and security standards.

Office 365 Government plans are available to qualified government entities including US federal, state, and local governments and other entities that handle data subject to government regulations and requirements.

Each plan is offered on a monthly subscription plan and can be licensed to an unlimited number of users. You can start a free trial and begin a special compliance validation process that is required for eligibility. Once your organization has been validated, you can begin using the trial. 

Plans under this section include;

Office 365 Enterprise E1

This plan has all features of Exchange Online (Plan 1) plus cloud file storage and sharing, online meetings, and instant messaging. 

There are no apps that are included in this plan. Services included in the plan are Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams. 

You will get the web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You will also get a Business email, calendar, and contact with a 50 GB mailbox. 

You will stand to benefit to host unlimited online meetings and HD video conferencing using Microsoft Teams. You will be able to inform, engage with a company-wide intranet and team sites using Microsoft SharePoint.

Office 365 Enterprise E3

With this plan, you will get all the features of Office 365 Enterprise E1, plus Office desktop applications. You will get personalized search and discovery, self-service business intelligence, and enterprise management apps. 

Office applications included in the plan are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access (for PC), and Publisher (for PC). Services included are Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.

You will also get web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint more. Packed under this package are Business email, calendar, and contacts, as you get a 100 GB mailbox.

You will be able to host unlimited online meetings with IM, and HD video conferencing with Microsoft Teams. You will be able to inform and engage with a company-wide intranet and team sites using SharePoint.

Office Graph will help you get personalized search and discovery across Office 365. You will also get enterprise management of apps with Group policy, Shared Computer Activation, and Telemetry.

You will benefit from self-service business intelligence, with the ability to discover, analyze and visualize data using Excel.  You will have compliance and information protection legal hold, rights management, and data loss prevention for your files and emails.

For maximum security, take advantage of out-of-box protection as a way of encrypting your sensitive emails using Office 365 Message Encryption.

Office 365 Enterprise E5

The third of the plans contained under this section is Office 365 Enterprise E5. This plan contains all the features of Office 365 Enterprise E3, plus unified communication using Skype for Business Server and advanced eDiscovery with predictive coding and text analytics.

Office applications included are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher (for PC), and Access (for PC). There are web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Additionally, you will get services including Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.

You stand to benefit from Business email, calendar, and contact, with a 100 GB mailbox. You will be able to host unlimited online meetings with IM, and HD video conferencing with Microsoft Teams.

You will get personalized search and discovery across Office 365 using Office Graph. There will be enterprise management of apps with Group Policy, Shared Computer Activation, and Telemetry.

Stand to benefit from self-service business intelligence to discover, analyze and visualize data with Excel. 

There is also active directory integration to enhance the easy management of user credentials and permissions. There is also world-class data security. You will have compliance and information protection legal hold, rights management, and data loss prevention for your files and emails.

You will have hosted voicemail support with auto-attendant capabilities. There is also advanced eDiscovery with predictive coding and text analytics.

You will stand to benefit against sophisticated threats such as phishing and zero-day malware, and have the ability to investigate and remediate attacks with post-breach advanced personal and organizational analytics using Power BI and MyAnalytics.

Audio conferencing will allow invitees to join Microsoft Teams meetings by dialing in from a landline or mobile phone. You will be able to make, receive and transfer calls across a wide range of devices with the use of Cloud PBX.

You can also make domestic and international calls from current or new phone numbers with an add-on Calling Plan, or just bring your carrier and make use of Direct Routing.

You will be able to apply out of box protections such as encrypt-only and do not forward policies to sensitive emails using Office 365 Message Encryption. 

All the above Office 365 plans have a guaranteed uptime of 99.9 percent and a financially backed service level agreement. These plans also have IT-level web support and 24/7 phone support for critical issues

Eligibility Requirements

Office 365 Government plans are available to all qualified government entities including US federal, state, local, and territorial government entities. These are entities that handle data, subject to government regulations and requirements, in instances where Office 365 is appropriate to meet these regulations and requirements.

A government organization is typically any government agency, department, or division that is established by laws of the customer’s state and located in the customer’s state jurisdiction and geographic boundaries. Microsoft reserves the right to verify eligibility at any time and suspend the service for ineligible customers.

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