The solution is actually one suite. Azure and Intune, everything comes together. Once you have Microsoft 365, it is one platform and its different products are all under one umbrella. We use SharePoint, Word, Excel, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams - basically everything.
The product makes it easy to collaborate once all the employees are under one domain. Everyone can easily collaborate and share work-related information on the Cloud and all documents are shareable.
The storage is much easier. Let's say that you are part of one company. You have that security with the company and you can easily share within Microsoft Teams and OneDrive. It's really easy now to collaborate, store, and share everything.
The solution is very stable.
The scalability is great.
The installation process is pretty straightforward.
I don't have any issues with the product or its offering. There aren't any missing features. I've enjoyed working with it.
It could be flexible in terms of working with other cloud-based solutions.
We've used the solution for one year at this point. It hasn't been that long just yet.
The stability of the product is very good. There are no crashes. It doesn't freeze. We don't deal with bugs or glitches. It's reliable.
The solution scales well. If you need to expand it, as a company, you can.
We have about 1200 people using the solution at this time.
Technical support has been very helpful and responsive. They are good. We are happy with the level of service we get.
Previously, we used Microsoft Office 2016.
The implementation was straightforward. It was not overly complex. From Intune, we had the option to deploy this product to all of the computers in the company. It was not very difficult as InTune provided this option for the deployment of Office 365 applications. You can just select whatever you want - Word, Outlook, Excel, OneNote, Teams, et cetera. It was very simple.
We have between 15 to 20 technical personnel in our organization that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks for this solution.
I handled the implementation myself. I did not need the assistance of any consultants or integrators. It was all handled in-house.
I like that the licensing is user-based.
The solution comes as one full suite that, once you buy it Microsoft 365, delivers everything you need under that license. You just have to select how many users will be using it. Once that happens, you pay for it yearly.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. It's been a great solution so far.
I would recommend the solution to others.
We primarily use 365 for financial functions, like invoices, PODs, purchase orders, and customer contracts.
At this stage, we're getting the most value out of Exchange, Teams, OneDrive, and some portions of SharePoint. Another nice thing is that Microsoft has infrastructure within our borders. From a GDPR point of view, our data needs to reside within South Africa's borders, and they've got data centers here. That helps because our government has stringent regulations that say the data we can't store data in the cloud outside of our borders.
365 Business' workflow should be better integrated into our current ERP systems. We are running two different ERP systems that are integrated, so it would make sense in the future to have those systems integrated into a content management workflow system. As it is, 365 is extremely open for integration, but it could be more seamless. Also, from an administrative point of view, it's a bit scattered. A more centralized user environment would be better.
We only started rolling 365 Business out in May last year from the local exchange and migrating everything to it. Due to the pandemic, it just made sense. So, I think most other companies did the same thing. In the beginning, my company was primarily interested in the email aspects of 365, but I showed them the potential of SharePoint as well. I gave them a demonstration, and now they're more using OneDrive than SharePoint itself.
We have no complaints about 365's stability.
365 Business is easy to scale based on my experience. But it also depends on which portion—which modules— you want to scale. Adding normal users on Exchange is fairly straightforward. But when it comes to databases, scaling up can become quite complex.
I would say that Microsoft's support is fairly good. I would rate it about six out 10.
The initial setup of 365 is relatively straightforward. However, because we have about 120 employees, total deployment takes two or three days, including migrating historical email data. But, we were able to handle it all ourselves. And from a maintenance point of view, it's reasonably stable. It's just typical user issues, like password resets. We don't have any problems with space or anything at this stage.
The price of 365 Business is highly competitive, especially if you compare it to standalone document and content management systems. Obviously, that excludes Exchange and all of that. But if you compare it to other similar products—which you can't really compare it to—I think it's very competitive.
I rate 365 Business seven out of 10. I would definitely recommend it. It's easy to use from a user's point of view. It's easy to set up and add users.
We are using Microsoft 365 Business for many of the applications that it includes, such as all the office applications, Dynamics, and Power BI.
We moved from the on-premise version of Office which had limitations. The cloud version has given us more agility and the ability to focus on the service instead of on the administration. We can spend more time on our core business instead of on the IT teams.
The current product they provide has been very satisfying. The email service has been operating perfectly. Dynamics CRM is the best and competes well with the non-CRM products in the market, such as Salesforce.
Microsoft needs to enhance its part in service management. I believe they have a product called Orchestrator, it does not get the same benefits and functionality as the rest of the solutions such as Dynamics or Office 365. They can improve by providing more integration with other solutions to cover the full business spectrum of needs, this would be a great benefit.
Office 365 Business needs to fully be shifted to the cloud because of the improved functionality. Many corporations, such as ours, are looking to be fully implemented on the cloud. The domain functionality and active directory should be fully available on the cloud platform. They need to look at this point because having things local, such as local domain and local policy, need to be shifted and available on the Office 365 platform. This would be good for corporations to have a full cloud solution.
I have been using this solution for approximately nine years.
The solution is highly stable. If there is ever an issue it is minor, they provide an uptime of approximately 99 percent.
Microsoft 365 Business is scalable.
The basic support is not very good. The first level technical team, they need a big improvement because their knowledge is very limited. I think they are just reading a knowledge base script and trying to solve the problem. They are not very technical to be able to solve a problem directly. You need to go around and around with Microsoft in order to get your problem solved. However, if you have the premier support contract, this would be easy for you to manage your issues, even if you have big problems. For the normal support basic support, they need to improve it. I think this is the weakest point for Microsoft.
The initial installation was very easy.
The solution is expensive. Basic support comes free with the regular subscription but the premier support cost extra.
I would highly recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.
We use Microsoft 365 Business for email, SharePoint, and OneDrive. In the Office suite, we use many of the old applications, such as Excel. We use extensively SharePoint to share files, OneDrive to take backups on regular basis, and email.
The solution allows for easy collaboration. You are able to use, for example, Excel and go online to the cloud and save your documents offline rather than on a personal hard drive. In my organization, we promote collaboration when possible and this solution does a good job at providing this functionality. The solution is always updated and we receive the latest features. Additionally, they offer many other services we do not use very much but are available, such as Power BI.
I have been using the solution for approximately three years.
I have found the solution very stable. We have not had any issues in the three years operating any of the products.
The solution is scalable. We are using Office 365 Business in all three operations we are currently involved with.
We use the technical support from Microsoft but it was mostly related to the OneDrive. We had a couple of extensions not supported by OneDrive in the beginning, we reached out to the support and they were very quick to respond and resolve the issues. They have an account manager in the Middle East which provides us with an easy way to receive support.
We have previously used a cloud storage solution called Egnyte.
The full implementation took approximately one day and the length of time it took was due to the need for us to migrate from our on-premise Exchange server to Office 365 Business.
We used consultants for the implementation.
The solution is expensive and the price could be lowered. For example, if I want to purchase a personal Office 365 subscription, they have pricing that does not have the flexibility to choose a wide range of storage sizes, you are limited to a lower amount. If you then switch to the Business version to receive the larger storage offering it is too large and expensive. If they would allow customers to choose the storage size on-demand it would be beneficial and a big improvement.
We did not evaluate other options because we have an Exchange server and thought it would be best to use a Microsoft platform.
I would recommend this solution to others. I do not see any other comparable alternative solution as comprehensive as this one.
I rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.
We are primarily using the solution for our desktop office apps and Outlook and these kinds of things.
The performance of the solution is very good. It's quite stable. We haven't had any issues with the product so far.
The flexibility of the solution has been great.
The solution can scale.
Technical support is okay.
Technical support could be a bit better. It's an aspect Microsoft could improve upon.
The integration with the other apps could be improved. I know it's dependent on what the company might decide and maybe not from a system side, however, if they can add more apps or more integration that would be helpful.
I've used the solution for one to two years at this point. It hasn't been that long.
The solution is quite stable. The performance is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
It is my understanding that the solution is scalable, however, I am not on the technical side, and therefore, it's not an aspect of the solution I directly deal with.
The entire company uses the solution. It's likely around 1,000 people in total.
Technical support is okay, however, it could always be slightly improved upon.
I wasn't a part of the initial setup and therefore cannot speak to the exact process. I am not aware of if it is difficult or straightforward based on personal experience. I also cannot say how long it takes to deploy.
I'm not sure how many team members we have for maintenance or if it is a necessary aspect to be concerned with. Our IT team is managing it, and there are about 50 team members in total in the department.
You do need to pay for a license, however, that is handled by another department. I can't say how much we pay at the company in order to use the solution.
My understanding is that there isn't a big difference between a monthly and yearly licensing fee.
I cannot speak to if we looked at other options before choosing this solution. I did not handle that aspect directly. I'm not sure if we did any comparison at all.
As we are using the solution on the cloud, we are using the latest version of the solution. It is always automatically updating for us.
I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been mostly quite satisfied with the solution in general.
I would recommend the solution to other users.
Microsoft Teams, without a shadow of doubt, is the best platform ever.
It is also very stable with a lot of options.
They should simplify breakout rooms a bit. Breakout rooms are probably the most important factor. They have done some work on breakout rooms, but they probably have to do a bit more to make them simpler.
I have been using this solution for the last eight years.
It is very stable.
It is scalable. Currently, we have over 1,200 users. We are also rolling it out to students, and our number of users will roughly be from 3,500 to 4,000. These users will be across the globe at the following locations: Geneva, Paris, London, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Hyderabad in India, Maputo in Mozambique, Mombasa in Kenya, and few locations in Canada and the US.
Their technical support is extremely good. They walk you through, and if needed, they are happy to talk to you for a couple of hours. It doesn't matter whether it is the middle of the night or early morning.
For students, we have been using Google Suite, but they are no match with Microsoft. So, we are moving out. A limitation of Google is that it is not present at every location. They were able to deploy it for India and Kenya, but for Mozambique, after trying for six months, they refused. They asked for a lot of information, and we gave them all the information. They kept us waiting for six months, and then they came back and said, "No, sorry, we can't provide." That was very disheartening.
In terms of support, Google is no match with Microsoft. Google probably doesn't provide support.
Its installation is so simple. You just have to turn the service on from the global account, and then a user can just log in to his or her account and download and install it. A user doesn't need support. There is, of course, a bit of difference from user to user, but generally, it is fairly simple. You could just click Next and do it yourself. It takes less than five minutes.
I have done it myself, and I have also seen non-IT users doing it themselves.
Our licensing is annual. We have a Volume Licensing deal with them.
We straight away went to Microsoft.
I would recommend this solution without a shadow of doubt. I would rate Microsoft 365 Business a ten out of ten.
I use the solution for various tasks as it is a bundle of products. I use Outlook for messaging, Visio for chart modelling, PowerPoint for presentation, Excel, Word, and OneNote. For me personally, OneNote is mostly helpful application.
When trying to compare other products there are not a lot of product that can even compare with the functionality. There are many products bundled together.
I think every product manager has to use the products by himself because I am a product manager in my company for years, I have seen rudimentary mistakes. For example, in previous versions, there were no problems with simple operations. Currently, I see unstructured development. In previous versions it was always stable, now they focus on un-useful features, instead of useful ones.
Some of the functionality in the solution needs to improve. For example, when receiving a message in Outlook regarding the start of a meeting, it is not easy to connect, pick a microphone, or click the link.
Some of Google services are better than the ones with this solution.
I have been using the solution for a couple of years.
I observe the dynamic of Microsoft products from unstable to more stable. They have improved over the years from critical mistakes. For example, Microsoft Teams, strange product, but now I can say it is a good product with mistakes, often unstable, but I observed the solution getting better over time. They need some more work done on stability.
I have 3,000 employees in my company using the solution.
I have used the solutions technical support in the past and I received an answer but it did not have the solution. It was a standard automated message. They could improve on the agent's knowledge for dealing with issues.
I used Lotus from IBM in the past and it was terrible. I decided to find a new solution without Lotus. It was very hard to work with Lotus and other IBM product. Additionally, I have used Google products too.
I ordered this solution and the supply manager installed it. They had no problem.
We have an IT division in my company that manages all the deployments.
There is a licensing fee that is quite expensive. However, the solution is useful and the price is equal to the value.
Microsoft wonders me, I am quite satisfied with this solution. I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.
The features that I like best with Microsoft 365 Business are that the files are available offline. When I start Confluence, when I'm on the go, let's say on the plane, I can still modify my files and then when I get to coverage they are synchronized with the cloud. That makes it really strong. Then of course there is the Office support. You need to buy Office products anyway these days and it's actually coming in a bundle.
In terms of what could be improved, they are continuously developing it, but sometimes not necessarily in a good direction. There are changes happening every three months so you actually have to learn some tools again. I'll give you an example. Teams used to be really good and now, I have a feeling that they hired developers from Skype Business because it's actually not very good.
The same with some other tools which are actually being developed, then all of a sudden they are not as good. For example, OneNote. OneNote is a really good tool or used to be a good tool, but now nowadays, it is a bit like Confluence and other corporate tools. I cannot tag anybody. If I make a note in OneNote, I have to send them an email with the link otherwise nobody will actually check it.
There is room for improvement.
I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for about six years.
It is license-based. You can buy one license and you can buy 10 licenses and it still works very well, even if there is a new colleague coming on.
It literally takes 10 minutes to get a new license.
The initial setup is really easy.
The whole architecture is really simple. Since 365 offers these AD login, the globalized login, setting up Windows and Office 365 takes about half an hour.
I'm actually using a Mac book now for the last two or three months, and that is not complicated either.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Microsoft 365 Business somewhere between seven or eight. Let's put it at an eight.
I would recommend Microsoft 365 Business. I would tell people that when they first set it up, I mean the very initial set up, not for the laptop but for the company's set up, they should be clever when choosing the name of the company inside the ecosystem because it seems that when our IT guys chose the name they made a mistake. After the company name they put the company's address, the previous address, and now it stays there forever. So the main SharePoint or the main link to the company's website, still has the company's old address in its name. That's actually stupid, but otherwise I would recommend it.
