No capital expenditure, ease to roll out, high reliability and easy maintenance are one of the ten reasons why businesses should migrate to Office 365
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Microsoft Office 365 is the subscription package to run Microsoft Exchange in a data centre that is managed and maintained by Microsoft, which removes the need for small-business owners to facilitate and maintain an in-house/physical server to run Microsoft Exchange.
Here are 10 features of Office 365 that make it attractive to businesses.
1. No capital expenditure
A business won’t need to fund the initial large capital outlay to acquire a server, exchange licenses, the implement it and upgrade infrastructure that is required for other systems, to roll it out across their organisation. That expenditure is replaced by a monthly subscription fee based on the number of accounts you hold.
2. Easy to roll out
Without having to roll out a server and the associated infrastructure and software, the initial set up can be done in hours.
3. High reliability
Microsoft Office 365 has a guaranteed uptime of 99.9%. Microsoft has the most advanced data centres that offer temperature and humidity control, multiple internet links and power generators.
4. Large capacity
The mail store in a Microsoft Small Business Server Exchange is 75 GB for the entire organisation. From our experience, the average mailbox size for an employee over a 2-year period is around 2 GB per account. Office365 allocates each user 50 GB of storage, meaning you can keep more emails online without the need to archive.
5. Easy maintenance
Maintenance is carried out by Microsoft, removing the need for an IT specialist to maintain your Exchange server, your backups, anti-virus software, etc.
6. Built-in anti-spam
Businesses that run their own exchange mail server have to subscribe to external anti-spam filtering solutions, but this is included in the Office 365 package.
7. Disaster recovery
The most difficult and time-consuming component to a disaster recovery plan is the recovery of the Exchange database – with this component removed from your infrastructure the overall risk to your organisation is reduced.
8. Accessibility
As long as you have an internet connection you can access your emails and files anywhere anytime – a real boon in this era in which many people work remotely.
9. Compatibility
Office 365 supports all Windows and Macs, desktops and handheld devices.
10. Flexibility
Microsoft offers a number of plans with flexible licence types and terms. Your IT provider can guide you through which will suit your business best.
Handy hints
For a small business or a start-up, migrating to Office 365 is very straight forward. For larger enterprises, the implementation should be treated as any other major system roll-out requiring detailed planning from an experienced IT provider that can provide a robust communication plan and project-management skills to ensure a smooth transition.
Please also note that in order to use Office 365 effectively you do need to have the latest Microsoft Office software, which can be purchased outright or as part of the Microsoft Business Premium subscription.
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