Head of infrastructure and security at New Delhi Television Ltd
Real User
Good features, good integrity and confidentiality, and no need to manage anything
Pros and Cons
  • "Feature-wise, everything is okay. We are getting the latest version of the application. You also don't need to manage anything. Everything is running at the backend. The best part is that even if there is a failure in the on-prem active directory, users can still access mails. You can configure MFA easily and protect the mailboxes. Integrity and confidentiality are there. In this aspect, I am very happy with Microsoft."
  • "The security features and the engine they are using are not good enough. They are not able to protect you from phishing attacks, which is the biggest drawback of this solution. We have been getting phishing emails, and I have been chasing Microsoft every single day. In terms of configuration, all the controls that they have recommended are in place, but we are still getting a lot of phishing emails. I would like to see a feature that allows us to share a folder from an online archive, which is a sort of mailbox attached to the primary mailbox. Currently, you can share folders, contacts, and calendars only in the primary mailbox. You can't share any folder or other things from the online archive. The limit of the primary mailbox is 50 GB, whereas the online archive is unlimited, so it would be useful if we can share a folder from the online archive."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it for emails.

What is most valuable?

Feature-wise, everything is okay. We are getting the latest version of the application. You also don't need to manage anything. Everything is running at the backend. 

The best part is that even if there is a failure in the on-prem active directory, users can still access mails. You can configure MFA easily and protect the mailboxes. Integrity and confidentiality are there. In this aspect, I am very happy with Microsoft.

What needs improvement?

The security features and the engine they are using are not good enough. They are not able to protect you from phishing attacks, which is the biggest drawback of this solution. We have been getting phishing emails, and I have been chasing Microsoft every single day. In terms of configuration, all the controls that they have recommended are in place, but we are still getting a lot of phishing emails. 

I would like to see a feature that allows us to share a folder from an online archive, which is a sort of mailbox attached to the primary mailbox. Currently, you can share folders, contacts, and calendars only in the primary mailbox. You can't share any folder or other things from the online archive. The limit of the primary mailbox is 50 GB, whereas the online archive is unlimited, so it would be useful if we can share a folder from the online archive. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for more than six years.

Buyer's Guide
Microsoft 365 Business
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft 365 Business. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

How are customer service and support?

I interact with them on a regular basis. There are certain cases that we opened two years back, and they are still pending. To enable MFA for a specific user, the admin has to be a global admin. If you want to enable or disable MFA, you have to reach out to the global admin, and we are just waiting for this feature to be enabled.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We moved to this solution because running Exchange Server on-prem is more expensive than moving to the cloud. We don't need to bother about backup, storage, or other things. In on-prem, you have limited storage, and you need to have a team of at least 15 people maintaining Exchange Server for backup, AD, and other things.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

If you go with Microsoft, they will give you 80 GB in advance and all those kinds of features. They will also keep asking you to go from E1 to E2, E2 to E3, and now E5. Their prices are high, but as long as the organization is happy to pay and your emails are working seamlessly, it shouldn't be an issue.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are now evaluating Cisco Email Security, which is better than Microsoft. Google is also there, which can save you some money, but I personally don't like Google's Gmail for business.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to go for it undoubtedly. I have been using Microsoft products for more than 30 years, and it is my favorite email solution.

I would rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Ligor Medina - PeerSpot reviewer
Technology Solutions Manager at KdmConsulting
Real User
Top 10
Feature-rich, easy to use, stable, and is priced well
Pros and Cons
  • "There is a lot of documentation available that is easy to comprehend and follow."
  • "I am responsible for handling the licenses and was not happy with the amount of time spent during the auditing process."

What is our primary use case?

We are cloud service providers for Microsoft. We offer it as a service to our customers and we are heavy users of Microsoft products.

We use this solution in our office for email and communication through SharePoint and Teams. We maximize the use of the forms that are also included in Office 365.

As the head of our technology solutions group, I use it also for tracking, and surveys within the team. I share the forms with the team and I am able to receive responses from the team. 

I had used Excel and Word for many years even before I started using this solution.

How has it helped my organization?

In the past, offices had to install their own Exchange, but with Office 365 we can enjoy the email that is bundled with it, which is Outlook. 

What is most valuable?

I enjoy using Teams, Outlook, the forms that are provided, and SharePoint because it connects all of us within the team.

We are able to share all of our worksheets, and the collaboration is valuable. This is what makes the Teams feature the part I enjoy the most in this solution.

The storage, cloud storage, and forms are very useful.

There is a lot of documentation available that is easy to comprehend and follow.

What needs improvement?

I have yet to explore all of what this solution offers. At this time, my focus is on learning more about Teams, especially the forms and the collaboration.

The area that consumes a lot of my time is auditing. I am responsible for handling the licenses and was not happy with the amount of time spent during the auditing process.

There is always room for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I started with this company three years ago and that is when I started using Microsoft 365 Business.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Microsoft 365 Business is a stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not yet experienced expanding this solution. It provides me with enough resources and enough service. For now, scalability is not something that I am concerned with.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have not contacted the technical support of Microsoft. We have our own technical support team who can support us.

The last time that I had an issue, it was easily resolved by our team. They were able to resolve it easily.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also provide Hyper-V. We offer the operating system of Microsoft and bundle it when we offer servers for our customers.

I use solutions other than Microsoft 365 Business. I also use SQL, the Windows Server Operating System, and the CALs. I find that CALs is a bit more complicated but because there is a lot of support available, I am able to figure it out. When I ask for clarification and the correct sizing, they provide me with that.

More of us should be more aware of the usage of CALs and how it really works with the operating system.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup as we have an in-house IT team who is responsible for the installation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I find the pricing of Microsoft 365 Business to be reasonable. With the other products such as SQL database, they are expensive.

There is a free license with Microsoft, which is the SQL Express. But it would be better if they could improve, or make adjustments to have higher limitations.

The Express is limited based on the capacity of the memory and processor. If my requirements go beyond those limitations then I have to go to the standard edition, which is very expensive.

I would like to see adjustments made to the limitations in SQL Express. It would be very helpful.

What other advice do I have?

I am really very happy using this solution. I am comfortable using it and have asked my team to offer this solution and I have included it as a part of our portfolio.

I encourage my team to offer this solution to some of our customers who are not yet with Office 365.

We have our own management portal and we are partners with Microsoft.

I would definitely recommend this solution to anyone who is not yet using it.

I would rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: reseller
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft 365 Business
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft 365 Business. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
769,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Assistant consultant at Vvolve management consultants
Real User
Top 10
Stable solution and offers ability to slice and dice data for focused analysis
Pros and Cons
  • "The setup is straightforward."
  • "I would like to see more integration options."

What is our primary use case?

I  use it for Microsoft Excel, which helps with data analysis. It integrates Power BI, allowing us to perform various slicing and dicing of data.

Mostly, I have only used Microsoft 365 Business for emails and PowerPoints as of now.

How has it helped my organization?

The solution includes most of the things we need. We can use it to integrate other source systems as well, like Power BI.

What is most valuable?

It's helpful to even use it to build queries, like Microsoft queries. We can write SQL queries by joining two tables present in Excel itself. So, it's like having two tables in separate sheets, and we can build a query using a common column as a join condition. We can see the key dataset with common columns using the join condition. 

Moreover, we can also perform outer joins, making Microsoft 365 Business ideal for data analysis as well.

What needs improvement?

In future releases, I would like to see more integration options. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for the past around one year. We currently use the latest version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. There are over 10,000 end-users in our organization. It is extensively used in our organization. We do have plans to increase the usage.

For example, I primarily use Excel in Microsoft 365 Business. So, we have options like Excel options; we have add-ins. So under the data tab, we have a data streamer, and we also have Microsoft Power Query for Excel. So using these, we can include the data-related menu bar in Excel software.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is straightforward. We have Excel, and we can use it as it is. It might need an add-in to be included.

We need maintenance primarily for data analysis. We use it to analyze the data, especially when we have a large dataset that we want to segregate and analyze specifically for a particular functionality. In such cases, we can use Excel for slicing and dicing the data. It allows us to focus on a specific chunk of data to make informed decisions.

What about the implementation team?

The deployment was done by our in-house team. It's a direct tool like Microsoft Excel, but there is an add-in that can be used to integrate with other source systems. It may extend the functionality.

We don't have a separate deployment process. Excel is a file that we have as part of Microsoft Office. It's a direct use, but we might need to include an add-in to display or the data-related menu in the Excel menu bar.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There would be licensing costs because Microsoft 365 Business requires a product key and a license to be present in order to use its products, including Excel and other supportive products.

What other advice do I have?

I would suggest you to start using Excel as a basic step because Excel has its own formulas and functions. They can begin with lookups in Excel and then subsequently move ahead with building queries. 

If a person has only Excel to work with, they can start with that. But they would need to have Microsoft 365 Business to proceed further with other features.

Based on the Excel work that I have done using Excel, which is a part of Microsoft 365. So, for Excel, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Therefore, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
MartinPotgieter - PeerSpot reviewer
Services Manager at Bytes Systems Integration
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Affordable software with an easy initial setup process
Pros and Cons
  • "It is an excellent and powerful program."
  • "Stability-wise, the program could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use the program for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, etc.

What needs improvement?

Stability-wise, the program could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for five years. I am using the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the software’s stability an eight out of ten. Sometimes, I have to restart the PC.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Microsoft 365’s scalability depends on the subscription plans. It might cost around R300 per month.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. Its installation part is easy and takes around 40 minutes to complete. If you use Microsoft Office 2016, deinstall it entirely before installing the software. It is essential to have backups of its previous versions on your system.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The program is inexpensive. The license allows five users to access it at the same time.

What other advice do I have?

It is an excellent and powerful program. Customers are upgrading the old Microsoft Office packages to 365 as it is the future. I rate it a ten out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior DBA & IT Consultant at MA Consulting
Real User
A stable and scalable solution with straightforward use and installation and good tech support
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is nice and straightforward."
  • "There is an error in the languages which creates a very big problem."

What is our primary use case?

Everyone in our organization uses Office, including PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams and Outlook.

What is most valuable?

The solution is nice and straightforward. They are in the process of expanding everything to the mobile to allow for integration between it. 

What needs improvement?

The acrylic solution could be improved. There is an error in the languages which creates a very big problem. In Hebrew one writes from right to left, not the converse. Customers receive emails in which the English word appears at the beginning instead of the end. This makes reading challenging. There is still an issue with the Greek language. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Microsoft 365 Business since the beginning. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Thes solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support, being Microsoft, is good. Usually, there are no problems with the solution, as it is used by everybody, from secretaries to professionals. 

How was the initial setup?

As the solution is cloud-based, the installation is straightforward. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing costs are not expensive. The prices are okay. Nowadays, Office 365 is available and I see companies working with this. It can also be rented monthly or bought on-premises. 

The payment terms can vary. One who rents Office 365 will accrue a monthly cost. One who rents the on-premises version of Office from Microsoft, as opposed to its cloud-based counterpart, will have the option of paying for it annually or purchasing a single license with support. 

Microsoft offers many features. When one buys a Microsoft license, he pays for everything inclusively, including Windows, Office, databases, BI and other Microsoft solutions. Everything is visible. One does not pay for the individual components but for the solution itself. 

What other advice do I have?

Everybody uses Office. I am not aware of a single customer who does not. I think this rule applies to everyone in Israel uniformly. 

The number of people using the solution matches the size of the population in the country. 

I don't believe that use of Microsoft 365 Business over some other solution is really optional. This said, those using Apple or Mac have the option of going with OpenOffice, but 99 percent of the Israeli market goes with Microsoft and Windows, in which Office comes bundled in it. Perhaps in the United States this is different, as they have a much greater propensity to use Mac.

I rate Microsoft 365 Business as a ten out of ten. everyone uses it and there is really no alternative available. While the market makes available other choices, they cannot compete with Microsoft. There is the OpenOffice option, which I believe is employed with Mac and Apple. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Telephony manager at Allied Global
Real User
Great video conferencing feature; SharePoint is a great collaboration tool
Pros and Cons
  • "Valuable features are video conferencing, email, and Office suite."
  • "Video feeds cannot be disabled which is a distraction during video conferencing."

What is our primary use case?

I work for a contact center in Guatemala and this is a contact center platform. We use the 365 tools for our daily operations including email and back office tools. We're customers of Microsoft and I'm the telephony manager. 

What is most valuable?

Videoconferencing using teams allowed us to keep our meeting cadence during the transition to working from home. SharePoint allowed us to keep sharing content for mobile and work from home users without breaking the company security protocols.

We completed the transition to Microsoft outlook company wide Data leak prevention policy templates added the additional security required for WFH.


What needs improvement?

We have 5,000 employees and 75% are working from home. It's very stressful when you're video conferencing and you can't disable your own video feeds. I'm always having to look at myself during a conference call. One of our consultants suggested disabling our own self video feed to reduce the stress during a long conference call. It's something small but it bothered everybody.

The other issue is when you want to connect the publicly accessible telephone network to Teams, it requires a paid service and additional models and hardware. If I invite you to a Teams session, you need to have Teams installed. It requires a specific phone connection and for you to have a phone in order to dial into the conference switch. Zoom has a pool of telephone lines already included in the base service and you can just call up the conference number without needing to install anything. That's not the case with Microsoft. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool works, but we have had a couple of blackouts. It was a global problem where the entire platform started behaving badly. The more you rely on the tool, the bigger the concern is for a cloud platform, but so far so good. We had a couple of issues, but that was worldwide. Of the 5,000 people in the company, probably half of them are users.  

We have three people in the company responsible for setup and the actual migration, and they deal with upkeep and any problems. We'll increase use for everybody because we're continuing to work from home and this is going to be the defacto communication tool for our working from home agents. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Google but moved to Microsoft.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. We did it ourselves and we paid for gold support, so we just raised a couple of questions, but it was pretty straightforward. Implementation took about one month. 

What was our ROI?

Employees are working from home and this solution has enabled us to continue functioning. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing is on an annual basis. 

What other advice do I have?

It's important to take advantage of the adoption project managers at Microsoft. Our initial setup was without hiccups, but the team at Microsoft responsible for the early adoption for a successful implementation are key. They really helped with the initial setup. When you start from zero, it's not as intuitive as you might think and it helps to have people with more knowledge to point you in the right direction. It's not rocket science, but trying to do it yourself can be a nightmare. 

The product lacks features and is quite expensive so I rate this solution a nine out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Easy to use, good collaboration, storage, and sharing
Pros and Cons
  • "It's painless."
  • "Lower license options should come embedded with security."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution to drive our email services and for collaborations of spreadsheets or word documents.

Also, the OneDrive is used for storage, which allows you to access your files from anywhere.

The bundle we have comes with the office installation to the CCM on the user's work tools. When you are working on your documents, you can easily sync them to the one online. It is much more seamless when it comes to accessing documentation and collaborating with other people on the same projects. It is essentially what we use Office 365 for. 

What is most valuable?

It is easy to use.

It's painless.

What needs improvement?

If they want to encourage more usage, the pricing should be looked at. The pricing should be in a way where we can leverage the E5 functionality. 

The security section of the solution is also something that is of great concern, especially now that a lot of people are doing work from home. You need the Microsoft Intune solution to help protect your documentation, your documents, and to keep your data confidential.

Lower license options should come embedded with security.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for a few years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of it being scalable, you can practically use it for anything you want to use it for.

We have approximately 480 staff members who are using it.

Everyone has a mailbox account.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have not contacted technical support. It's pretty straightforward. We have a lot of resources online to guide you. 

We have not called Microsoft for anything.

How was the initial setup?

It's a cloud-based solution, so there really isn't any installation. You are given admin credentials.

You can download the office tools from the cloud and you can apply your licenses to start working and activate your account.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is quite expensive.

If I wanted to improve it, I would look at the way they price their models, for example, Microsoft is breaking the license models into sections such as E1, E3, and E5.

The E5 license is quite expensive. Most of our users have an E3 license essentially due to cost.

What other advice do I have?

I think that Microsoft Office is the number one solution for organizations. I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Microsoft 365 Business a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Group IT Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good collaboration in office applications that are consolidated in a single interface
Pros and Cons
  • "You can have conference calls with different parties using video and voice."
  • "The security sites need to be simplified and the technical support needs improvement."

What is our primary use case?

This solution is used for everything, the task, and the teams. It is a collaboration of all of the applications that are found in Office 365, but with one interface in which you can communicate between people.

We have some that have been deployed on a hybrid cloud, others that are just cloud, and some that are hybrids with an Active Directory that is on-premises and connected through Windows Azure. It connects to the cloud to sync all of the users from our campus.

For email assistance, or SharePoint or for sharing drives, it is all the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

One of the O365 applications that made a huge impact is the Microsoft Teams that enhanced our communication in sharing files with online modification and execution helped in focusing our conversations and divide them into channels to have an efficient and effective output. Also chatting has been evolved to be not only sharing text but also solving problems instantly due to the ease of communication (Chat, Voice, Video). Work-From-Home became much easier then you can even imagine with O365.

What is most valuable?

These are the main things that help the business collaborate.

  • At the same time, you can share files, you can send emails on the spot, and you can also assign meetings on the spot.
  • You can have conference calls with different parties using video and voice.

It saves a lot of time. When opening a new business, you need the main server, file sharing, and you need to secure them.

Not only to have them there on-site or on-premises, you need to have them backed up, and archived. So rather than going for a new place, with a new Internet, we go to Cloud and it will provide everything that we need.

You're not restricted to a certain place or certain country. You can work from any place on Earth, from any device, without having your laptop.

This is one of the main factors, and that it is secured. This is also a big advantage.

They have already made some improvements to the interface and dashboards that have made a positive impact.

What needs improvement?

The security sites need to be simplified and the technical support needs improvement.

In the next release, I would like to see the management of the security features become more user-friendly.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable.

In our team, we don't have many users. We are in the early stages of migration.

Other companies that I work with have approximately three hundred or four hundred in different countries and the other sites I have one hundred and fifteen to one hundred and thirty users.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

This solution is scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support needs time to understand your problem to help you, because of the language barrier. It takes time to solve certain things.

In the Gulf area, most people call in Arabic and want to translate to English. The problem is the Technical support does not understand English well, so it takes time to explain what the problem is when it could be a simple issue to resolve.

This doesn't represent all of the technical support, maybe 75% is good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have Google. Google is good, but I was not familiar with the application and the tasks because most of the time I have worked with Microsoft. They have the same features, but I didn't find that Google was easy to work with applications.

They have evolved a lot but there are still some laps between them like an on-premises exchange and Lotus Notes.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

Within thirty minutes you will have your site up and running, including emails and shared folders.

Even if you need more options, like profiles and hierarchies, it is straightforward. You just go ahead and add them.

For a new business with twenty people, you will need approximately two or three days maximum to have all the sites up and running for all services.

What about the implementation team?

I did the implementation myself. I did not use any vendors or integrators.

What was our ROI?

The return on investment is very high for companies whose work is based on communications.

This is targeted for countries with unstable internet. As an example, in our region you don't know when the internet will go off, we have now been without the internet for over a week. This is a problem for people who have on-premises deployments and need to connect to the internet.

For new businesses, rather than having a lot of servers, they can go online. Most people have 4G on the mobiles so they can just search it on their mobile. The Internet is not an issue.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

After the last update that was made, you are not obliged to take the same license for all of your users. For example, if you go for E1 it is $12 USD per month for every person.

Now you can select different licenses, for example, if somebody doesn't need all of the features, it would cost $8 USD per month and if they didn't need the email application then it would cost $6 USD per month.

What other advice do I have?

This solution requires a lot of money. It's a huge expense and it's a concurrent expense. You don't just pay it once, it's going to be continuous and you pay annually.

Unless there is a huge impact on the business, then it would be worth going for it. If there is no impact on the business then you can use it on-premises and work with the old office.

I would recommend this solution for newly opening businesses that need collaboration and communication that requires the internet but doesn't need a fixed place to work. They should go with Office 365.

They are going to pay every year but they will be saving a lot of money for electricity and maintenance for the telephone, voice, VOIP, IP telephones, internet, and subscriptions.

The security is also important, it's not exposed to everybody. 

You won't need an IT department because one person can handle everything.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft 365 Business Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Microsoft 365 Business Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.