Microsoft 365 Business 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

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

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

Other strategies like Business Standard and E5 have their advantages, but we find that thinking about Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 provides companies the best bundle of features that are important for any organization.

In this post, we will cover the distinctions in between Business Premium and Microsoft's first business offering. You might discover that neither offering is for you, opting for the less costly Business Standard strategy, or the immersive E5 plan.

Bear in mind, for the purposes of this post, all references to "E3" specify to Microsoft 365 E3. This strategy is different from the tradition E3 offering, referred to as "Microsoft Office E3."

If you have a question about any of these strategies or want to consult our tech professionals on which M365 package will move your organization furthest forward, get on a call with us as soon as possible.

What is Microsoft 365?

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A style depicting Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3

Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's membership performance suite that can connect all of your favorite Microsoft Office applications together with world-class cloud capabilities and air-tight security.

M365 comes packaged in many different plans for house, service, and enterprise. With varying prices and features, Microsoft offers you choices for what plan fits your situation the best.

What is Azure cloud?

Graphic highlighting multiple computers sending data as much as 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, resolving issues including storage, calculation, and analysis of data through virtualization.

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

Cloud services allow services to minimize their overhead by reducing storage expenses, while also centralizing information for better file sharing, and bolstering backup and disaster recovery efforts.

What is Business Premium?

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

Organization Premium costs $20 per user each month and comes with a 50 GB mail box storage limit and a 1 TB storage limitation in OneDrive. Just 300 Business Premium licenses can be appointed to a company before it must begin purchasing enterprise strategies.

What is E3?

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

E3 expenses $32/user/month and features unlimited mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to the number of business users can be on E3 plans. It also features a few of the top security functions available.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune

A graphic revealing linked gadgets to Microsoft Intune

ITSG spotlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 plans since they supply so many features that make your cloud experience much better.

The essential function that makes these plans elite is Microsoft Intune, which manages access for mobile devices, consisting of smart devices, tablets, and laptop computers.

It likewise allows managers to set additional security measures on non-company devices and limits on what remote employees can access.

Why does that make Intune a gamechanger?

Anyone who has needed to set up a new computer system or mobile phone has likely needed to invest hours customizing their settings, restoring files, and remembering passwords.

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

Paired together with Azure Active Directory, Intune eliminates the requirement 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 trouble and no server, Intune conserves money and time that you can assign somewhere else.

If you currently have a server, Intune and Azure ADVERTISEMENT 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 ultimate alternative for your IT.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- What else?

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

Both strategies feature Microsoft's best-in-class communication center, Teams, in addition to SharePoint Online and Planner.

Both Business Premium and E3 feature Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are essential features that protect your service from losing information that is vital to any legal procedures. Company Premium might run into storage issues if Litigation Hold is utilized to freeze too much information.

Security

The genuine value you get with E3's rate increase is its additional security functions, which are expansive. E3 includes Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the complete version of Azure Active Directory.

E3 also includes the capability to encrypt emails with the click of a button. This makes sure that sensitive details is opened by the intended getting celebration, who must log in with a Microsoft or company account.

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

Organization Premium only features Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (previously called Advanced Threat Protection).

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

The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that analyzes the traffic coming in and out of your network, diagnosing the behavior of entities within your organization. By learning the behavior of users and other celebrations accessing your data, ATA can properly find and alert you in the event that anything is suspicious.

Credential guard uses virtualized security to keep login credentials concealed from all software application, other than for programs that need them. This extra security stores data in a separated area to reduce the opportunities of credential theft.

AppLocker allows supervisors to manage which files and applications that users have access to, consisting of executable files and installer files. This protects you internally, as user error is a leading cause of cybersecurity breaches.

Mentioning user mistake, Windows Information Protection prevents the accidental leakage of data by employees through e-mail, social media, and similar apps. WIP signals users that their action will share or divulge work details before the action is confirmed. This defense becomes more crucial as staff members remain remote.

Additionally, with WIP, organizations can maintain an archive after a worker leaves, while still deactivating their license.

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

Business Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based email filter that recognizes destructive links and accessories prior to they enter your environment. Defender also determines malicious files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Defender suffices to secure your service overall and is a great first step in protecting your cloud. If you want the most security Microsoft can offer, that will need one of their enterprise plans.

E3 and its innovative security features permit companies to carefully stabilize which staff members have access to carry out which tasks, creating a streamlined, safe cloud environment.

Whatever else

If you are not as stressed over your security, think about some of the other functions of E3 that you may lose out on with Business Premium.

One big perk of E3 is the capability to access the Microsoft Office suite by means of a remote desktop, meaning you can deploy its efficiency apps to shared computer systems in your business.

The ability to trigger shared computer systems remotely likewise comes with E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer can continue to deal with their files.

Exclusive to business plans is Azure rights management, which safeguards data that is shared externally. When safeguarded files are emailed to another business, the security stays on the file.

Like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, Azure rights management is crucial for compliance and may be required.

E3 further strengthens your compliance with information loss avoidance (DLP). If your business handles delicate, proprietary, or customer data, DLP can determine and secure it from being shared. Utilizing "deep content analysis" and data-matching through keywords, DLP will show a pop-up notice that cautions 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 likewise limited to enterprise.

These are just some of the extra functions of E3, with more that are currently present, and more that will be included in time. If you think any of these what is cyber security features may be something you need, make sure to connect to ITSG before choosing.

Conclusion

Microsoft 365 Business Premium gives your service whatever it needs to run and grow. That's why we recommend it to all our consumers.

Safety and security are a should for modern companies, nevertheless, and if your organization is dealing with delicate data or has strict compliance regulations-- E3 might be your best option. Making this choice might not be a simple task. If you are an organization bigger than 300 staff members, it might be a decision that is produced you.