Office 365 for Business released

In late February, Microsoft announced, and subsequently rolled out, the newest versions of Office 365 for Business. This latest offering integrates the newly released Microsoft Office – Office 2013 – and brings some great new features that businesses can take advantage of. With the release comes a number of versions that companies can use.

Here’s an overview of the four new versions of Office 365 for business that small to medium sized companies will be able to subscribe to.

Office 365 Small Business
This can be considered the simplest new version of Office 365, and is for businesses with a maximum of 25 users. This version costs USD$6.00 per month or USD$72.00 per user per year. Supported services include Exchange, Lync, SharePoint and Office Web Apps. The desktop version of Office 2013 does not come with this package.

Office 365 Small Business Premium
This option is for small businesses with 10 or fewer employees and costs USD$12.50 per user per month, or USD$150 per user per year. Users have access to: Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access. Supported servers include; Exchange, Lync and SharePoint.

With this version, you get five installs per user – meaning you can install Office on up to five computers – share calendars, 25GB of email storage with virus and spam protection and are given 10GB cloud storage per user.

Office 365 Midsize Business
This offering is for businesses with more than 10 people, but under 250, and costs USD$15 per user per month, or USD$180 per user per year. Users have access to the same software and server support as the Small Business Premium Version, but will also be able to use: Exchange Online, Lync Online and SharePoint Online. Further, each user can install Office on up to five devices.

Beyond that, you will also be able to access the same cloud storage options as Small Business Premium. There are easier administration tools and a web-based admin console which make this version easier to manage.

Office 365 ProPlus
ProPlus is a new offering from Microsoft, and is for companies with 10 to 250 users. It costs USD$144 per user per year, or USD$12 per user per month. Users have access to Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, InfoPath and Publisher. Server support for Lync, Exchange and SharePoint is also included.

Users are not given access to cloud storage or the online versions of Lync, Exchange and SharePoint.

These new versions of Office 365 are available to subscribe to now. If you would like to upgrade, or subscribe please contact us today. We can work with you to find the plan that best suits your business.