Microsoft 365 Company Premium vs E3, and One Powerful Tool in Both That Will Revolutionize Your IT

Microsoft 365 Company Premium vs E3, and One Powerful Tool in Both That Will Revolutionize Your IT

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So, you've decided upon Microsoft 365 and the Azure cloud for your business. Congratulations. We believe you've made the right choice.

Now that you've selected M365, it is time to choose a plan. While there are many to pick from, IT Support Guys typically handles M365's Business Premium and E3 (enterprise) offerings.

Other plans like Business Standard and E5 have their advantages, but we find that considering Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 provides companies the very best package of functions that are important for any organization.

In this post, we will cover the distinctions between Business Premium and Microsoft's very first enterprise offering. You may discover that neither offering is for you, selecting the less expensive Business Standard strategy, or the immersive E5 plan.

Bear in mind, for the purposes of this post, all referrals to "E3" are specific to Microsoft 365 E3. This strategy is various from the legacy E3 offering, referred to as "Microsoft Office E3."

If you have a question about any of these plans or wish to consult our tech specialists on which M365 bundle will move your service outermost forward, get on a call with us as soon as possible.

What is Microsoft 365?

A style illustrating Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3

Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's subscription efficiency suite that can tie all of your favorite Microsoft Office applications together with first-rate cloud abilities and air-tight security.

M365 comes packaged in many various plans for house, service, and business. With varying costs and features, Microsoft offers you choices for what bundle fits your scenario the very best.

What is Azure cloud?

Graphic showing numerous computers sending data up to the Microsoft Azure cloud, a crucial element of Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3 Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform that was released in 2010, fixing problems including storage, calculation, and analysis of information through virtualization.

Azure offers services like Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).

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Cloud services enable businesses to decrease their overhead by reducing storage expenses, while also centralizing data for much better file sharing, and reinforcing backup and disaster healing efforts.

What is Business Premium?

Microsoft 365 Business Premium is M365's top offering for small to medium-sized services, an upgrade on its Business Basic and brisbane it support Business Standard offerings.

Company Premium costs $20 per user per month and includes a 50 GB mail box storage limit and a 1 TB storage limitation in OneDrive. Only 300 Business Premium licenses can be assigned to a business before it must start acquiring business plans.

What is E3?

Microsoft 365 E3 is M365's preliminary business strategy, being available in as the second-most loaded plan feature-wise behind E5.

E3 costs $32/user/month and features unrestricted mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to how many business users can be on E3 strategies. It also features some of the leading security features offered.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune

A graphic showing linked gadgets to Microsoft Intune

ITSG highlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 strategies because they provide many features that make your cloud experience better.

The crucial function that makes these plans elite is Microsoft Intune, which manages access for mobile phones, consisting of mobile phones, tablets, and laptops.

It also allows supervisors to set extra security steps on non-company devices and limits on what remote workers can gain access to.

Why does that make Intune a gamechanger?

Anyone who has had to establish a new computer system or mobile phone has actually likely had to invest hours personalizing their settings, bring back files, and remembering passwords.

Those days are in the past with Intune, which permits you to produce a default image for release. When you set up a new computer, Intune permits you to strike the ground running without wasted time.

Combined together with Azure Active Directory, Intune removes the need to run your own server.

With top-shelf identity management and endpoint management in the cloud, Intune and Azure ADVERTISEMENT makes on-premise identity and endpoint management redundant.

Without any hassle and no server, Intune saves time and money that you can designate somewhere else.

If you currently have a server, Intune and Azure AD are still suitable with your environment.

Furthermore, with Azure sync, you can wed your on-premise and cloud servers to produce a hybrid setup, the supreme choice for your IT.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- What else?

Beyond Intune, there are other functions available in both Business Premium and E3 that make them stand above the less-expensive plans.

Both plans come with Microsoft's best-in-class interaction center, Teams, as well as SharePoint Online and Planner.

Both Business Premium and E3 feature Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are important functions that safeguard your organization from losing data that is critical to any legal proceedings. Although, Business Premium may run into storage issues if Litigation Hold is utilized to freeze too much data.

Security

The genuine worth you get with E3's price increase is its extra security features, which are expansive. E3 includes Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the full variation of Azure Active Directory.

E3 also comes with the capability to encrypt e-mails with the click of a button. This makes sure that delicate information is opened by the desired receiving celebration, who need to log in with a Microsoft or company account.

A screenshot of Outlook in Microsoft 365 E3, with how to put file encryption on an email.

Company Premium just comes with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (previously known as Advanced Threat Protection).

Let's rapidly discuss just what you get with these features.

The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that evaluates the traffic being available in and out of your network, detecting the habits of entities within your company. By discovering the habits of users and other parties accessing your information, ATA can properly identify and inform you in the event that anything is suspicious.

Credential guard utilizes virtualized security to keep login credentials concealed from all software application, other than for programs that need them. This additional security shops information in an isolated area to decrease the possibilities of credential theft.

AppLocker permits managers to control which files and applications that users have access to, including executable files and installer files. This secures you internally, as user error is a leading reason for cybersecurity breaches.

Speaking of user mistake, Windows Information Protection prevents the unintentional leak of information by workers through e-mail, social media, and comparable apps. WIP alerts users that their action will share or reveal work details before the action is validated. This security ends up being more vital as workers stay remote.

Additionally, with WIP, businesses can preserve an archive after an employee leaves, while still deactivating their license.

All these functions are tied together with the complete variation of Azure Active Directory, where you can monitor and govern your company's whole cloud environment. The complete version allows for extra functions like group access management, advanced security reports, multi-factor authentication with conditional gain access to, and more.

Organization Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based email filter that recognizes harmful links and accessories before they enter your environment. Defender also identifies harmful files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Defender is enough to secure your business general and is a great first step in securing your cloud. If you desire the most protection Microsoft can provide, that will require one of their business strategies.

E3 and its sophisticated security functions permit organizations to carefully balance which workers have access to perform which tasks, creating a streamlined, safe cloud environment.

Everything else

If you are not as fretted about your security, think about some of the other features of E3 that you may miss out on with Business Premium.

One big perk of E3 is the ability to access the Microsoft Office suite through a remote desktop, implying you can release its productivity apps to shared computers in your business.

The ability to trigger shared computer systems from another location likewise comes with E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer system can continue to work on their files.

Exclusive to enterprise plans is Azure rights management, which protects information that is shared externally. When protected files are emailed to another company, the security remains on the file.

Like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, Azure rights management is crucial for compliance and might be needed.

E3 further solidifies your compliance with data loss prevention (DLP). If your company handles delicate, exclusive, or consumer information, DLP can identify and safeguard it from being shared. Using "deep content analysis" and data-matching through keywords, DLP will display a pop-up alert that alerts users before sharing flagged data.

Other enterprise-only functions consist of Excel PowerPivot, and PowerQuery, in addition to Infopath, an application for dispersing and submitting electronic forms. In-place archiving for Exchange is also limited to business.

These are simply some of the additional functions of E3, with more that are currently present, and more that will be added with time. If you believe any of these features might be something you require, make certain to reach out to ITSG before deciding.

Conclusion

Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides your service everything it needs to operate and grow. That's why we advise it to all our consumers.

Security and security are a should for contemporary companies, nevertheless, and if your company is managing delicate data or has stringent compliance guidelines-- E3 may be your finest option. Making this choice may not be a simple job. If you are an organization larger than 300 workers, it might be a decision that is made for you.