Microsoft 365 Company 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 chosen upon Microsoft 365 and the Azure cloud for your company. Congratulations. We think you've made the right choice.

Now that you've picked M365, it is time to choose a strategy. While there are lots of to choose from, IT Support Guys generally handles M365's Business Premium and E3 (business) offerings.

Other strategies like Business Standard and E5 have their benefits, but we find that thinking about Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 provides business the best package of features that are crucial for any organization.

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

Remember, for the purposes of this post, all referrals 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 concern about any of these strategies or want to consult our tech specialists on which M365 plan will move your business furthest forward, get on a call with us as soon as possible.

What is Microsoft 365?

A style portraying Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3

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

M365 comes packaged in numerous different plans for house, organization, and business. With varying costs and functions, Microsoft offers you alternatives for what bundle fits your circumstance the best.

What is Azure cloud?

Graphic showing several computers sending data approximately the Microsoft Azure cloud, an essential element of Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3 Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform that was released in 2010, solving issues including storage, calculation, and analysis of data through virtualization.

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

Cloud services allow businesses to lower their overhead by reducing storage costs, while likewise centralizing information for better file sharing, and bolstering backup and disaster healing efforts.

What is Business Premium?

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

Company Premium costs $20 per user each month and features a 50 GB mailbox storage limit and a 1 TB storage limit in OneDrive. Only 300 Business Premium licenses can be appointed to a business prior to it should begin buying business strategies.

What is E3?

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

E3 expenses $32/user/month and includes unlimited mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to how many business users can be on E3 strategies. It also includes some of the top security functions available.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune

A graphic revealing connected devices to Microsoft Intune

ITSG highlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 strategies because they supply a lot of features that make your cloud experience better.

The crucial feature that makes these strategies elite is Microsoft Intune, which manages access for mobile devices, consisting of smart devices, tablets, and laptop computers.

It also permits supervisors to set additional security steps on non-company devices and limitations on what remote workers can access.

Why does that make Intune a gamechanger?

Anybody who has needed to establish a new computer system or smartphone has likely had to spend hours personalizing their settings, restoring files, and remembering passwords.

Those days remain in the past with Intune, which enables you to develop a default image for implementation. When you established a new computer system, Intune allows you to hit the ground running without wasted time.

Paired together with Azure Active Directory, Intune removes the need 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.

With no inconvenience and no server, Intune saves money and time that you can allocate elsewhere.

If you currently have a server, Intune and Azure ADVERTISEMENT are still suitable with your environment.

Additionally, 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 offered in both Business Premium and E3 that make them stand above the less-expensive strategies.

Both plans come with Microsoft's best-in-class communication hub, Teams, in addition to SharePoint Online and Planner.

Both Business Premium and E3 include Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are very important features that secure your business from losing information that is important to any legal procedures. Go to the website Company Premium may run into storage concerns if Litigation Hold is utilized to freeze too much information.

Security

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The real worth you get with E3's price increase is its additional security functions, which are expansive. E3 features Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the full variation of Azure Active Directory.

E3 also comes with the capability to secure e-mails with the click of a button. This ensures that sensitive information is opened by the desired getting celebration, who need to log in with a Microsoft or service account.

A screenshot of Outlook in Microsoft 365 E3, with how to position encryption on an e-mail.

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

Let's rapidly go over simply what you get with these functions.

The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that evaluates the traffic coming in and out of your network, detecting the behavior of entities within your company. By finding out the habits of users and other celebrations accessing your data, ATA can precisely identify and notify you in the case that anything is suspicious.

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Credential guard uses virtualized security to keep login qualifications hidden from all software application, except for programs that need them. This extra security shops information in a separated area to minimize the chances of credential theft.

AppLocker enables supervisors to control which files and applications that users have access to, consisting of executable files and installer files. This safeguards you internally, as user error is a leading reason for cybersecurity breaches.

Speaking of user mistake, Windows Information Protection avoids the unexpected leak of information by employees through e-mail, social media, and comparable apps. WIP informs users that their action will share or divulge work details before the action is validated. This protection becomes more essential as staff members stay remote.

Furthermore, with WIP, companies can protect an archive after an employee leaves, while still deactivating their license.

All these functions are tied together with the complete version of Azure Active Directory, where you can keep track of and govern your business's whole cloud environment. The complete variation allows for extra features like group access management, advanced security reports, multi-factor authentication with business it support team ltd conditional access, and more.

Service Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based e-mail filter that determines harmful links and attachments prior to they enter your environment. Protector likewise identifies harmful files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Defender managed it services for government is enough to safeguard your service total and is a great initial step in securing your cloud. If you want the most security Microsoft can provide, that will need one of their enterprise strategies.

E3 and its advanced security features permit companies to thoroughly balance which workers have access to carry out which tasks, creating a structured, safe cloud environment.

Everything else

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

One huge perk of E3 is the ability to access the Microsoft Office suite by means of a remote desktop, suggesting you can deploy its performance apps to shared computers in your company.

The capability to activate shared computers from another location also features E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer can continue to deal with their files.

Also unique to business plans is Azure rights management, which secures data that is shared externally. When secured files are emailed to another business, the defense remains on the file.

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

E3 even more strengthens your compliance with data loss avoidance (DLP). If your company deals with sensitive, proprietary, or consumer data, DLP can recognize and protect it from being shared. Utilizing "deep material analysis" and data-matching through keywords, DLP will display a pop-up alert that warns users before sharing flagged information.

Other enterprise-only functions include Excel PowerPivot, and PowerQuery, in addition to Infopath, an application for distributing and sending electronic forms. In-place archiving for Exchange is likewise restricted to enterprise.

These are simply some of the additional functions of E3, with more that are presently present, and more that will be included gradually. If you think any of these functions might be something you need, ensure to reach out to ITSG before deciding.

Conclusion

Microsoft 365 Business Premium gives your company everything it needs to operate and grow. That's why we suggest it to all our customers.

Safety and security are a should for modern business, however, and if your company is dealing with sensitive data or has strict compliance regulations-- E3 may be your finest choice. Making this option may not be a simple task. If you are a company bigger than 300 employees, it might be a decision that is produced you.