Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses

Q: Is it interesting to mix different types of licenses ?

Comparison of Office 365 Business Licenses

Office 365 licenses from the Entreprise range allow you to create, share and collaborate in any place, on any device, with a series of cloud -based productivity applications and services.

But how to choose between Office 365 E1, E3 and E5 licenses ? Depending on the configuration of your company and the needs of your users, it can be complicated to determine the licenses most suited to your business issues.

OpenHost helps you to see more clearly in Microsoft’s offer for companies, thanks to a comparison of Office 365 E1, E3 and E5 licenses taking into account their characteristics, their functionalities but also their prices.

To whom Office 365 company is addressed ?

Our Office 365 company subscriptions are obviously aimed at professional organizations above all.

If you have a workforce less than 300 employees, we recommend orient yourself towards the comparison of our Microsoft 365 Business, standard or premium subscriptions specially designed for SMEs. There is indeed a technical limit imposed by Microsoft: a maximum of 300 licenses Microsoft 365 Business similar for the same company.

When you approach the threshold of 300 users, it is therefore strongly advised to start familiarizing yourself with the comparison of Office 365 Enterprise licenses presented in this article.

Note that it is still possible to take 300 Microsoft 365 Busic licenses as well as 300 Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses for the same company since these are two types of licenses. Office 365 company licenses, however, prove to be more economical In the end because you can mix 3 different offers ranging from only € 7.40 per month and per user for the E1 license at € 39.50 per month and per user for the E3 license. You therefore have the possibility of taking E1 licenses at low prices for users exploiting very little the Office 365 services and E3 or E5 licenses for users with more advanced needs (data analysis, information security, etc.)).

Our comparison of Office 365 company licenses

Office 365 company E1: entry -level

The License Office 365 Entreprise E1 is the‘entry level of the Office 365 offer from the Enterprise range. It is available at a price of € 7.40 per user/month* + € 5 per user/month with the Teams option, or € 12.40 per user/month*.

• Office 365 office suite and the most recent professional services: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access
• Professional mailbox, calendar and contacts: outlook, exchange, delve, bookings
• File storage, sharing and collaboration: OneDrive (1 TB of cloud storage), SharePoint, Stream, Sway

Cloud telephony with Teams and call packages are available for optional purchasing.

The compliance and security features available with the E1 license correspond to the minimum of what can be expected from a business SaaS service today: Basic MFA, Audit newspapers, content search ..

Please note, the E1 license does not allow downloading office software Office 365 to your devices (smartphone, PC, tablet). A constant and secure internet connection is therefore necessary to access it.

Office 365 ENTREPRISE E3: Collaboration and data protection

The Office 365 Business E3 license contains all the products and services included in the E1 license as well as some extras. It is available at a price of € 23.10 per user and per month* + € 5 per user/month with the Teams option, or € 28.10 per user/month*.

Each user obtains a complete license and is authorized to Download Office 365 applications (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) on a maximum of 5 computers (PC/Mac), 5 tablets and 5 smartphones. Thus, your employees who are on the move or in teleworking will not be dependent on a good secure internet connection (as was the case with the E1 license). They can remain productive wherever they are and whatever the device they use.

With this license, you benefit from 1 TB of default storage on One Drive (as with the E1 license) but you can increase it up to 25 TB if necessary.

Many features of Data management and protection are also included in the E3 license:

• Protect information with message encryption, rights management and data loss protection for mail and files
• Protect business data by further strengthening access to internal resources and securing the sharing of sensitive information inside and outside your organization
• Easily comply with the legal obligations and simplify the archiving of emails and t the conservation of mailboxes.

Office 365 company E5: the Office 365 version inflated to block

The License Office 365 ENTREPRISE E5 is the most complete of the company versions. It is available at a price of € 39.50 per user and per month* + € 5 per user/month with the Teams option, or € 44.50 per user/month*.

You will get everything that is included in the E3 version with some additional advantages:

• Advanced security and information protection: License E5 takes measures to protect your data from threats such as phishing and malware type 0 Day. Thus, E5 users remain protected from the threats contained in attachments and links. The DLP ensures the safety of your content.
• Analysis tools: E5 is the only business subscription that offers analysis tools such as Myalynys and Powerbi Pro for data analysis and visualization.

Other additions, let us quote Advance Ediscovery, access controls and the encryption key, Advanced Threat Protection, Threat Intelligence for proactive cybersecurity and usable information, O365 Cloud App Security, PTSN conference capacities, Advanced Data Governance and customer lockbox.

Summary of our comparison of Office 365 ENTABLE E1, E3, and E5 comparison

Find in this section a summary table of the various features included in the Licenses Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3 and E5.

Which license Office 365 company to choose for my company ?

Now that you are unbeatable on the Office 365 company licenses, it’s time to make a choice …And it’s not always easy, we grant you. Here are some simple rules to eliminate certain choices according to your needs:

• If your users need the Office 365 office suite downloaded from their devices, then you will need the E3 or E5 licenses
• For your users with the need to use data analysis products like Power Bi, then the E5 suite is your only option
• If your business wishes to set up a simple archiving system as well as a prevention system against data parties, then the E3 and E5 plans are perfect for you

The amount of the budget allocated to your Office 365 environment will obviously impact your choice. During your calculation, do not forget to take into account the additional costs linked to the addition of not included features in basic licenses. Indeed, the Office 365 companies licenses are packs bringing together various services at a lower cost. If you go on an E3 license and want to add the Teams telephone standard then you will have to add a standard Teams License at € 7.50. You will then only be a few euros from the price of the E5 license.

An unmissable actor of the French cloud, OpenHost has a great experience in terms of advice, implementation and management of Office 365 environments. Complete support is the assurance of a successful Office 365 migration project for your business.

Our Office 365 experts are at your disposal to support you on your projects !

*With an annual commitment

Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses

Discover and compare the different types of licenses Microsoft 365 and Office 365, their costs and their features and benefit from the advice of a specialist in Microsoft licenses.

► Find out how to use the right information to optimize your Microsoft licenses !

Summary

1. Introduction
2. Presentation of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 classic licenses
3. The advice of a Microsoft license specialist

Introduction

Understanding the different licenses Microsoft 365 and Office 365 is important to save money and support the productivity of your employees. Unfortunately, many companies do not have adequate licenses and pass, without even realizing it, alongside the optimizations offered by the renewal of the AE of Microsoft .

The lack of clarity of license guides is often the cause of these bad choices. The bad ergonomics of the prices pages of the Microsoft website does not help things (it is for example difficult to find a comparative table of the functionalities and prices of the various licenses for large companies and SMEs).

We have drawn up the table below to simplify the task.

Presentation of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 classic licenses

For large companies (over 300 users)

License type	Rate	Preview of features
Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise (formerly Office 365 Proplus) license type)	Price € 12.80 per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of versions for large companies from Office Applications with Outlook as well as file storage and sharing on the cloud. Exchange, bookings, social media applications, stream and teams are not included.
Office 365 E1* license type	Price € 6.70 per user/month (annual subscription)	Preview of the features includes access to social media and intranet, file sharing and content and labor management applications, but limited access to Office Applications, E-mail and calendar services, meetings, vocal communications and analysis.
Office 365 E3* license type	Price 19.70 € per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of the features All the features of the Office 365 E1 license, plus full access to Office Applications, E-mail and calendar services, apparatus management and applications and management of identities and access, but limited access to information protection applications and advanced compliance.
Type of license Office 365 E5*	Price € 34.40 per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of the features All the features of the Office 365 E3 license Plus full access to the service and vocal communications, analysis, security and information and advanced conformity services.
Microsoft 365 E3 license type	Price € 31.50 per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of the features All the features of the Office 365 E3 License Plus full access to security management services and limited access to threat and protection protection services, compliance management services, as well as than to identity management and access services.
Microsoft 365 E5 license type	Price € 53.70 per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of the features All the features of the Office 365 E3 License Plus A full access to the service and vocal communications services, analysis, security, information protection and advanced compliance.
Microsoft 365 F3 license type (formerly Microsoft 365 F1)	Price € 6.70 per user/month (annual subscription)	Overview of the features All the functionality of the Microsoft 365 E3 license except the advanced analysis service.

For VSEs/SMEs (up to 300 users)

License type	Pricing	Preview of features
Microsoft 365 Business Basic license type (formerly Office 365 Business Essentials)	Price € 4.20 per user/month (annual subscription + automatic renewal)	Overview of the features includes web and mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint software as well as Microsoft Teams, Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint. Office’s office versions are not included.
Microsoft 365 standard Business license type (formerly Office 365 Business Premium)	Price € 10.20 per user/month (annual subscription + automatic renewal)	Overview of features for VSEs/SMEs that use Office Applications on several types of devices as well as professional messaging, cloud storage space, online meeting and instant messaging service.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium license type (formerly Microsoft 365 Business)	Price € 16.90 per user/month (annual subscription + automatic renewal)	Overview of the features includes all the features of the standard business license plus advanced protection against cyberrenchers and the management of devices with intune and azure protection information.
Microsoft 365 apps for business license type (formerly Office 365 Business)	Price € 8.80 per user/month (annual subscription + automatic renewal)	Overview of the features includes Office Applications for all devices as well as a storage space on the OneDrive Cloud. Professional messaging, calendar and teams are not included.

Note: Our table presents Office 365 E1, E3 and E5, because many customers and prospects have these licenses, which Microsoft continues to offer. However, Microsoft has expanded its offer With Microsoft 365 E5, E3 and F3 licenses . These licenses offer intelligent experiences, professional level management and advanced security, but are much more expensive.

Here is a brief Comparison between Office 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E3 , which includes a Windows 10 Enterprise and Microsoft Intune (Enterprise Mobility + Security) license, which is the main difference between the two offers.

Advice from the Leanix Microsoft Licenses In Licenses

Dejan Sraka, Senior Engineering Manager at Leanix, answers below the main questions to ask to choose well between the offices 365 and Microsoft 365 licenses. He has supported more than fifty companies playing in eight different sectors towards profitable use of SaaS services and a successful office/Microsoft 365.

Q: What type of license do you recommend ?

A: Office and Microsoft 365 are available in several licenses, each with different service combinations. To find out which license to choose, you must ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you already use comparable services ?
• The services gathered in these offers would complement or replace services already integrated and used actively ? Some of the services included are you useless ?
• What are the costs of implementing/replacing the services included in the offer ?
• To what extent do you want to integrate your business into a complete Microsoft suite ?

Also scrutinize your data use data. These concrete data will feed your reflection on the type of license to adopt.

Q: Is it interesting to mix different types of licenses ?

A: It is common that companies mix different types of licenses, because the necessary access, features and characteristics vary from one type of employee and post to the other. This is why it is essential to draw up a complete inventory of your current environment before deploying a Microsoft 365 solution.
During this stage, also look for any similar services already used and, if necessary, decide their status after the deployment of Microsoft 365. Holding or terminating comparable services has an influence on the type of license required for each type of employee.

Q: In your opinion, in what situations do customers waste money in unused features ?

A: Often, companies buy group licenses from which they only use certain features. In other cases, companies underestimate their needs and thus limit the productivity of their employees. A tailor -made purchase guarantees a profitable investment that does not lead the work of your teams. To this end, you must understand the needs of your users, inform yourself about the different offers and properly define your use case.
Once this is done, it is necessary to monitor adoption and actual use. It is not enough, for example, to bet on safety functionalities and to select the Microsoft 365 E5 license. Only 20 % of your staff may use security features and less than half of the employees come to even activate their Microsoft Apps suite. Plan quarterly exams to assess the usefulness of your licenses.

Q: What are other SMEs and large companies do to improve their productivity, management of their licenses and achieves savings ?

A: Some companies develop adoption and migration plans to manage their SaaS environment. Platforms like Leanix SaaS Management greatly simplify the follow -up of SaaS adoption and use.

For example, one of our partners had bought E5 offices licenses for the majority of its employees. But less than one percent of them used the advanced safety features included in this license. More than eight percent of employees have never been awarded a Microsoft 365 app license and only 76 % of users have actually activated the product. Many users could have settled for an F1 license to meet their needs.

We have helped the customer become aware of the situation, potential savings and underused. Thanks to SaaS visibility, they were able to adjust their licenses and set up processes promoting more thoughtful adoption.