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Hello, my name is Brady.
You: hello my name is James
Brady: Hi there!
You: I saw a video, don't know if you guys made it or not, but it was advertising office365. I went to check it out and I must say it is very missleading
You: we use google apps for $50/user/year less and there are no ads
Brady: Okay. I'll be happy to clear up any confusion if I can. What has prompted you to look into Office 365?
You: You: I saw a video, don't know if you guys made it or not, but it was advertising office365.
You: going over your features, the only thing I see that is interesting over Google Apps is the AD integration. But I'd have to pay more than double I am now.
You: is there any thing else you offer I'm not seeing yet?
Brady: I will be right with you.
You: I'll be right here
Brady: Okay. AD integration is included with any Office 365 Enterprise plan. Each plan includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online. Additional features are available in different plans.
Brady: Exchange Online will include 25GB of storage per user license, Forefront Online for anti-virus/spam protection, and ActiveSync for your mobile devices. SharePoint Online includes 10GB of storage, plus 500MB extra for each user license.
Brady: And Lync Online would provide you with instant messaging and web audio/video conferencing for up to 250 participants.
You: We are a company of 32 users (could go up to 35 in the near future). Currently we don't have a lot of office application needs, just a few users share spreadsheets.
You: which plan would you recommend?
Brady: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.
Brady: The most basic plan that includes AD integration is E1. This plan is $10/user/month, it includes Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync. It would also include 24/7 phone and email support and can easily be expanded for any size business.
Brady: If you find that you need additional features in the future, you can also easily change an Enterprise plan to a different Enterprise plan.
You: That would be $3840 a year ($2240 more than I'm paying now) for almost the same service. I don't think I could justify something like that. Not to mention the cost of migration (speaking of which I could only find migration documents to move from internal Microsoft services not another cloud service).
You: Combine with the misleading video I don't think I can justify making a change. But thanks for your time.
Brady: Thanks for chatting and have a great day!
First Impressions
Basically I've been lied to, not all their plans have AD integration. Only their Enterprise Plans do. I'm sure that's what he meant by his statement, but I was looking at all plans. Unfortunately, their small business plans only support 25 people. Funny how the government (and Microsoft in many cases) considers anything less than 500 employees small business. For all those businesses that fall in the 25-75 employee range, you get to pay out the nose like a giant enterprise.
I am intrigued by the over all idea. I mean, most businesses run Microsoft products already because they are familiar for users and simple for administrators (yes pricey but you don't have to retrain people--maybe one day I'll make a post about how I failed to convert a small company to OpenOffice.org because too many people don't get the concept of hierarchical structures and file types). I guess it would really come down to the business itself. None of the businesses I currently work with would benefit enough to justify the cost. My recommendation for simple could services stays with Google Apps.
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