WASHINGTON, D.C. – Commercial versions of Microsoft Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility with Security will now be part of a new suite called Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella made the announcement during the Inspire 2017 conference, noting that Microsoft 365 will now come in two flavours: Enterprise and Business.
The Enterprise version will feature Office 365 Enterprise, Windows 10 Enterprise and Enterprise Mobility with Security and is targeted at large organizations, while Business is meant for small-to-mid-size businesses and will have the Business Premium version of Office 365, online services such as OneDrive and the business apps portfolio. That offering will be coming out on Aug. 2.
While this looks like on the surface as a new packaging of products from Microsoft, Microsoft GM Catherine Boeger cautions that Microsoft 365 is not just a set of products the company decided to put together.
“We have made this more intuit for customers to manage. You now have to take 43 steps (for Office 365, Windows 10 and EMS). With Microsoft 365 it will be just 15 toggles. We have made it much simpler to control,” she said.
Boeger added that Microsoft 365 is more of shift in Microsoft vision in how it builds and plans to sell product solutions. And, it’s the centerpiece of one of Microsoft’s four new focuses: Modern Workforce.
Also worth noting is the Office Admin Console, which has been re-titled Microsoft Admin Console. It’s a single console system with a new policy card in place.
Boeger also said that Microsoft plans on launching SMB specific business apps such as Bookings, Listings, Connections and Invoicing soon.
Chris Oakman, the CEO of solution provider SolaceIT said at a cost of US$20 per seat, per month, Microsoft’s changes will lead to some cost and time savings for the customer.
“We are an MSP [managed service provider] company and Microsoft 365 is one more tool we can add to our tool belt,” he said. “It would take about two days to deploy a PC with this type of productivity, the Windows updates and Office installation. Now it’s just a couple of clicks and the end users is ready to go in an extremely short time.”
