Microsoft 365 Business Reviews

As a business intelligence specialist and business owner, I primarily use the standard apps in this solution. I enjoy the fact that there's a smorgasbord of additional apps that make for great productivity within the business - especially when you realize what all the apps can do for your business.

MS365 Business has offered me a robust infrastructure with the out of the box standard offering but also provided amazing apps and features to encourage growth in other areas of my business.

I like that the standard solution is easy and intuitive. It's worth taking the time to go and poke around all the other apps, though. 

There are rules of engagement that are important to know and it can be overwhelming at first if you're never been a Sysadmin. The Apps within the solution provide different business functions so you don't have to hire anyone - you can actually do most of it yourself. It's a huge cost saving for a small business and with the subscription, it's actually much cheaper than buying the products outright, as you would have had to do in the past. You can get everything you need for a reasonable price e.g. if you wanted, say, five features/ functionality you'd pay between $100 and $1000 for each, potentially spending close to $5000 once off but then next year arrives and you need to buy the next version and again you're spending precious funds. Instead, with subscription plans, you get between ~20 features/ functions. My plan, plus the add-on Apps costs my business $12.50x2 + $30 +$9.99  per month = $780 annually - the key is TODAY'S cash stays in my pocket.

You have to buy licenses for everything, but the pricing structure is very competitive. From a small business perspective, there's lots of advantages to going with 365, because not only are you getting the standard tool set to actually just run a standard business, but you're getting add-on Apps/features that open up opportunities that you might not have thought of and... the realization that you don't have to pay another entity because you can do it yourself e.g. sway and bookings

I think where Microsoft could help with the product is to perhaps have an agent/ comprehensive start up video, that can assist with the initial setup since you're now dealing with several admin panels. You can learn it yourself but there are certain tips and tricks that could much more easily be communicated in a conversation. For example, know that if you go into an admin portal, you're going to need five things; and you need those five things before you go into the portal and they each may need their own setup/initiation.

I submitted a good few support tickets early on because some of it was a bit overwhelming. When you're a small business and you suddenly realize that there are various admin portals which all do different things and you set something up in this portal and then you have to go set something up in another portal and connect the dots. If you don't know to do that and you haven't yet read ALL the documentation, it can be very overwhelming and you can feel a little lost. But once you get your head around it all, it's quite brilliant - the architecture and how they set everything up in the background.

I've been using the MS365 Business standard plan for two months. 

The stability of this solution is superb. No issues. Just know that when you make updates or edits in the admin panels, the change(s) may not take effect instantaneously, in some cases.

I haven't tested scalability as we are a new business, just starting out. There is only one other person working with me and I purchased two licenses even though the other person in the company doesn't yet use the product. You have to have one license per user even though each user gets to load it/ use the license on several other devices. It might be a waste but I wanted to do the right thing. It would be helpful if they provided an option for two licenses so you could legitimately have it on a second computer. 

I've bought additional licenses for other apps because my business is going to be delivering a very comprehensive business intelligence/ project management service offering. I expect to expand use and embark on several upgrade routes available to me, when the time is right.

Very responsive, thorough and professional. Just be aware that they have teams with specialities and they don't cross lines e.g. I needed help with Power BI so you have to specify that in your ticket or deal with a generalist who will not be able to help you. I learned to state the product first then state your issue.

I've used Google in business as well, and I like the ability of being able to collaborate that they offer, but Microsoft 365 actually fixed that and you are now able to collaborate in the documents e.g. Word and Excel. So I really didn't see the need to stick with Google. The only thing that Microsoft wasn't able to deliver for me was photo and video organization/editing. Even if you're not a photographic business, you do still take photos and videos for your business. I do still use Google for all my photos and images.

The intial setup was very straightforward and took me less than an hour but all the administrative elements can take longer, depending on what you choose to do. You need to configure it with all it's variables and that can take extra time. The basic setup to just start work, was super quick. If you have a powerful computer it's about the download time and then some setup time. It's the Sysadmin leg of work that was a steep learning curve for me.

Handled it by myself with great support from a very responsive MS365 Tech team.

incredible. Very lower startup cost.

For the standard plan, the cost is USD $12.50 per month, committed annually. There are often discounts offered versus month to month.

I wanted to stick with the best and only evaluated all the different price plan options. For my size and stage of business the standard option offered everything I needed, plus some.

I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

The main thing we use the solution for is being able to outsource everything in the cloud while having the Exchange hosted. Having the Exchange and not having to manage the server and being able to deploy it wherever we have to is useful. We did have a number of people that traveled frequently prior to COVID. We have a handful of people that work out of their homes in various parts of the country, so having solutions that were accessible via the cloud was sort of a direction we started to migrate to several years ago in the Office 365 environment. 

The solution ensured we would never have to be premise dependent so it didn't matter where we or our employees were, or if something happened to the office. If we didn't have access to the office, we still had that access to all of our tools. We're very much a small firm so we use a lot of software services versus building our own things. We like using things that are already made.

The two biggest value adds of the solution are having the ability to outsource the email and not having to manage the email server. It's just seamless. Having the most current versions all around and having things updating frequently by themselves ensures that everybody's got access to the same software. 

In the past, we had a lot of problems with who was updated and so forth. It eliminates that problem and allows us to put it on multiple devices. It's a pretty good offering from that respect.

The ability to manage the updates a little better would be helpful. Sometimes end-users will get a prompt in the middle of the day that they have to update. When there's a new update, then their system automatically starts to reboot, which can be ill-timed. Having a little more control over that would probably be welcome. Notices in regards to updates and being able to manage the timing around them or to be able to do it at off-times would be helpful.

As we get into SharePoint and so forth, they could do a better job of giving you some guidance on the very basics as to how to get started. They have a lot of stuff when you're using it, so getting some foundational knowledge as to what to consider when laying it out and how to approach it would be helpful.

We've been using the solution for more than five years. I can't remember exactly when we originally implemented it.

The stability is very good. It's been very stable and I haven't had any outages or things of that nature, so I'm pleased with it.

We're a small company, however, I'm familiar with other users at larger companies and they've been very pleased with the scalability. Especially people that I've talked to noted that all of a sudden this became the main thing that they were using during this work from home social distancing trend. I've heard a lot of positives about that, which is one of the reasons that we're looking to implement Teams and we're just trying to get some information on the right way to do it.

Therefore, we're hoping to expand into Teams and SharePoint and use more of those tools. We started out with the basics and we use it enterprise-wide. We're hoping that we can continue to expand into it as much as possible.

I've had very limited access to technical support. Mostly, our IT team handles any issues. Therefore, I can't really speak to the quality of there service, as I've never really dealt with them.

The initial setup wasn't complex. It was mostly straightforward. We had a few hiccups with getting emails. It wasn't as seamless as it should have been with the initial setup of the user's email so that took a lot of one on one work with our IT staff who were constantly working with the end-users to get the phone and computer and everything all connected. However, since the original deployment, setting up new employees has been better.

The problem for us was that the automatic setup didn't work the way it should have. Typically, you just put in the password and it automatically sets everything up. IT had to go in and tweak things on people's accounts. From my perspective, and again, this was five, six, seven years ago, I remember it was more of an issue with how Microsoft reacted as opposed to what we were doing.

We do monthly billing, however, I'm not sure what the exact costs are. We may pay around $1,000/month.

We started using the Microsoft Teams and we've started doing the conference call feature, so that's another $4 an account and we have a few accounts using that right now.

We're Microsoft customers. We aren't resellers or consultants.

We have a fairly robust version of the solution, although I don't recall the exact version number offhand. 

In terms of what I would advise other organizations, I would say it's worthwhile and I would do it as quickly as you can because for what you get, it's a really good bang for the buck while being pretty easy to use. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

Microsoft 365 Business's most important feature is mobility. I have the application on my system and many other devices.

The program's UI could be faster. Additionally, more customization and cheaper pricing would be good.

I have used the latest version of Microsoft 365 Business for over three years.

I rate the stability of the program a nine out of ten.

I rate the scalability of the program an eight out of ten. There are approximately 100 users in our organization.

Previously, we used Google Workspace but switched to Microsoft 365 Business because our users were more comfortable with the program.

The initial setup was straightforward. I rate the process a ten out of ten. It is deployed on-premises and on the cloud in our organization. The deployment process took around three months. We required two people for the implementation.

I rate the pricing of the program a seven out of ten.

I rate Microsoft 365 Business an eight out of ten.

An area for improvement would be for Outlook to sync with Google Calendar.

I've been using Microsoft 365 for five years.

This product is reliable.

It is possible to scale up this solution.

I would rate this product eight out of ten.

We're a small startup company and an IT solution reseller in Dubai. I'm the operations manager.

The good thing about 365 is the accessibility and file storage. Compared to the desktop of the old Office application, 365 has total flexibility and accessibility from anywhere. It's easy to use.

These days, most people have multiple devices but you can only configure 365 on two devices with a license. I'd like to see a license option for multiple devices. Licensing costs are quite high especially for our trainees who have no need for the fully-fledged 365. It would be helpful to have an option for smaller packages that have a reduced licensing fee. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The company hasn't needed technical support but we contacted them for one of our clients when they needed an upgrade. There were no issues. 

There are five people in the company using 365 and the initial setup was very straightforward.

We're very used to Microsoft products and they're part of our daily activities. I'm sure our usage will increase. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

As the solution is cloud-based, we are using the latest version. 

The solution is very useful. We typically use it for Microsoft Outlook and Word. 

The solution is stable and easy to use. 

The solution could have better integration with other applications. 

I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for two years.

The solution is stable. 

I have never had occasion to contact tech support. 

The solution was easy to install. 

The installation process took around a half-an-hour.

One can handle the installation on his own. 

While I do not know the exact size of the technical team involved in the deployment and maintenance process, I believe it to consist of around five people. 

I cannot comment on the pricing, as I am not involved in it. 

I am happy with the product at the moment.

I believe there are 350 users making use of the solution at the moment. 

I would recommend the solution to others. 

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

The integration has been easy. The integration with all of the combinations of tools has been problem-free so far. 

It's a pretty ubiquitous product. Most companies use it for many tasks within their organization.

The solution could be a bit more mobile-friendly. It's easier to use on a desktop or laptop. It's a bit different on the phone. 

The applications could be more user-friendly for end-users - and this is especially true for the mobile version as everyone is doing everything on their phone these days. If there's something urgent, if you're on a vacation or something, you have to send an emergent presentation, an important proposal, something like that, you tend to use your phone. That's why they have to improve the licensing regarding mobile apps.

We've used the solution since the company started, which is 2014. It's been seven or so years now.

We have about 100 users on the solution. We're still a small to mid-size organization.

We use it across all departments, including marketing, HR, and finance. The C-level sales department also uses it a lot. We have a technical team and the pre-sales team as our job functions or our scope involves implementation for customers. We provide and implement new solutions, et cetera. 

We also are a Microsoft partner. We started with Microsoft 365 first. We didn't use Gmail or any other solutions for security reasons. We've been using Microsoft 365 since the beginning.

We are users and we are also Microsoft partners. We're resellers. 

I'm not sure which version we're using at the moment. Our technical team would track that level of detail. Likely, it's the latest update. It depends on our work rotation. We have to do the batching and we have to download all the new batches for security reasons as we have infrastructure and architecture that concerns our customers. That's why we're used to updating all of our applications and handling batching from the security layers. We use a cloud deployment.

For most companies, it's the core of their business. That's why I would rate it at a ten out of ten.

It's a productivity suite, including Outlook email, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

The Exchange Online plan is helpful. It's built into the email, like a security feature or AI that helps to manage email. It has helped my company and clients a lot.

If Business 365's documentation were better, then the user could read it and fix their issues by themselves. Microsoft could also add some more detailed pop-up troubleshooting messages. When a user has a problem, the messages they get don't help much. It would be better if the messages can troubleshoot the problem and show them exactly what the solution is. Microsoft could also add some additional training resources.

I've been working with Business 365 for five years.

Business 365 is stable. 

We've never had to contact Microsoft support.

Implementing Business 365 is easy.

Business 365's price is reasonable. They offer different packages, like the E3 and E5. Generally, the small package is good enough for my clients.

I rate Business 365 nine out of 10.