I have used Microsoft 365 Business for email, creating forms, Microsoft Teams for meetings and recording sessions, and data collection through forms. It supports communication and data collection. Google Cloud has Google Drive, Google Slides, and Google Docs, which are also low-priced.
HR at MRC Logistics India Pvt
A business solution for mail, forms, meetings, and recording sessions
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most useful is the analytics feature. Once you create and circulate the form, you collect the data. It'll give you analytics. When we use Outlook for email purpose, all the received file gets stored in a folder so you can access them from anywhere. We go, search, we'll get it. It is accessible and easy to use.
You can record the meeting in Microsoft Teams. It is the same as Google Meet.
What needs improvement?
Office 365 is complex in terms of creating a form. From the Microsoft team’s perspective, the interface could be improved; it should not take time to find out.
As the world moves towards AI, how does Microsoft 365 Business integrate AI features? For example, you can create presentations using AI. With AI, it takes less time to convert a presentation into a more visually appealing format, such as changing the slides and adding pictures. However, there is still room for improvement in generating content based on the input provided.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for two years. We are using the latest version of the solution.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft 365 Business
May 2025

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft 365 Business. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution's scalability is good. It's very easy to use. From 100-1000 users to a million users, you can scale it up the way you want it.
700 users are using this solution in our organization.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Google Workspace for work, which includes Google Slides, Google Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. It is easier to use than Microsoft 365 Business.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Microsoft 365 Business is simple. Our organization recently migrated from another email provider to Office 365, and we didn't need IT to set up email. We already knew the email ID, so we entered it. The mobile configuration happened in a minute.
If you have basic technical knowledge, such as how email is configured and how to set up Outlook, you can set up Microsoft 365 Business. However, it does require some technical knowledge, especially if you are configuring more advanced features.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have used Microsoft 365 Business for a few users, so the price is minimal for the service we are getting. However, Google provides Google Cloud Platform for free to universities, and I have been part of three universities where it is being used. Earlier, it had unlimited data storage, but now it is limited to 15 GB per user. Even though, in terms of usage, it is still better than Office 365.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate the solution a seven 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.

Northern Europe IT Business Intelligence Manager at Adecco
Very stable, great for collaboration, and can scale easily
Pros and Cons
- "The solution can scale up or down easily to meet the needs of any organization."
- "It would help, if, in the beginning, there was an onboarding process to show how to set it up properly or how to set up the things properly, or how to have the support they need or the guidance on how they should deploy it. In some cases, there are things that are not so crystal clear."
What is our primary use case?
From an Office 365 perspective, I would say that Teams and SharePoint and Planner are the most used. What Office 365 offers as a package is what is being at this moment used in the organization for us to work. At this moment, we are not so physically in the office. The majority of us are working remotely and across countries, across regions. The way for us to collaborate together and work together was by using more and more of Office 365 components.
What is most valuable?
Previously, you had the inconvenience that if you sent an Excel file to someone, you could not work together on the same file, and now you can. With the components that we have available, several people can be working on the same document, at the same time, doing the changes, doing the updates that they need to do. It makes the collaboration and the work more efficient.
We can touch base with our clients and we can touch base internally with our solutions without impacting the work or suffering from a lower speed. The performance and the efficiency of our planning and roadmap are extremely good.
The solution can scale up or down easily to meet the needs of any organization.
The solution is stable.
The initial setup is pretty straightforward.
Technical support is quite helpful and responsive.
What needs improvement?
It would help, if, in the beginning, there was an onboarding process to show how to set it up properly or how to set up the things properly, or how to have the support they need or the guidance on how they should deploy it. In some cases, there are things that are not so crystal clear. The platform is evolving all the time. It's not that you have, let's say, a quarterly release or a yearly release. Every month there's always something new. That's the reason why it's sometimes difficult to follow up as, in different components, in different areas, the features are evolving also.
They need to give more guidance or some video training or try to understand more what the organization is trying to build or accomplish and assist them on their journey. That sometimes is difficult. The companies, for example, sometimes don't know where they want to go. Only after a few years do they have some certainty. IF a big package is being offered to a company, they should be able to sit the decision-makers down and say "Okay, this is what we have. This is what the tools can do, what the tools can offer you." It would give them really important insights. If they have those insights, then they can make a more, let's say, clear decision.
They should show more examples or POCs. They should be able to say "Okay. I can show you, for example, how this solution was beneficial for our Coca-Cola client." I know Microsoft has several clients with various solutions. It's just a question for them to show the portfolio of each solution, and how the solution was going to develop, and how the solution was deployed to those organizations. Then, potential clients can say "Oh, great. I can reuse this solution for my organization." They don't need to think about how they would use the features from scratch when they can have already something that was, let's say, POC developed.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for years at least at this point. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. Even when multiple people are working on the same document, you don't get any sow downs. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is very scalable and the company is evolving to meet the demands. Microsoft is constantly providing packages and creating packages the allow for more efficient collaboration. They have options for small, medium, and large companies. It suits businesses of all sizes and makes everyone's life much easier.
We do plan to continue to use the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've dealt with technical support in the past, and they've always been very good. They are knowledgeable and responsive. We're satisfied with the level of support they provide.
How was the initial setup?
It's my understanding that the initial setup is straightforward. It's an IT process. Since it's a cloud solution, every machine has it. You just need an organization email account which allows you to create an account. All the products are automatically assigned to you. The product is based on a subscription model which allows companies to level up or level down depending on the profile of the user. You can offer the user a certain package, or you can offer him an enterprise-level option with basically everything. That way he can have more components and more functionalities that allow him to do his work.
We had found members of the technical team that handled deployment.
Deployments depend on the company. You may need some security, some administrative individuals, or some IT or ServiceNow team members to keep up with the requests or changes or updates that are required to be done in the tool. Depending on the package that we're talking about or depending on the options that you have, not all the users have admin privileges. Random users therefore may need to make a request from an admin user, and that has to go through a ServiceNow process. Everything depends on how the organization wants to set up that structure.
You need someone with an Office 365 background or an administration background, to be able to install what is required or to know what is required. You need someone from a security perspective to make sure that there is no breaches. You might need someone for the network also.
You may need some SharePoint administrator if it's, let's say, topics related to SharePoint. You may need a Teams administrator if it's related to Teams. You may need someone with, let's say, Power Automate or Power Flow expertise and knowledge to also answer those inquiries. It's a deck of people that may be required. If they are going to, let's say, govern the full Office 365 package, you may need the different people with different expertise or different knowledge across the different components and of each product.
What about the implementation team?
Our IT team handles the implementation and deployment. When they give the laptop to us to work, they already have installed all the components there. Of course, there are certain components that you can install separately. For example, Power BI. You need to install it separately. However, the Power platform, Power Flow, Power Automate, Microsoft Teams, are already incorporated into the Office 365 account. Since it's a cloud solution, it is installed by default based on the user profile that the user has.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I use this solution in a larger organization. They have an enterprise-level package.
The cost depends on the package. If you're working on an E3 license, it depends also on the contract that you have with Microsoft. There is the standard package if you don't have your own business and you are an independent user so that you pay the cost of markets. However, if you are a large enterprise, usually there's an agreement between vendor management and Microsoft to say, "Okay, we have this amount of people. We want this cost more or less to be applied." The cost usually is less than what is in the higher in the market. It differs from contract to contract.
At this moment, we have a great contract with them. The cost that we're paying for it is affordable. The only thing is, some companies may need some additional support, and for Microsoft to follow up with the evolution on the platforms that they have. Sometimes the companies lack some knowledge or some experience.
What other advice do I have?
At this moment, due to the COVID situation, the majority of the things that are being used in the organization are related to Office 365 products. There was a big expansion of Microsoft Teams, for example, and it's one of the most used components inside the organization. We use it not only for meetings but for other tasks such as importing Power BI reports inside of Microsoft Teams.
We have the solution deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. Right now it's more cloud-driven. In the past, there were some things that were on-premise components. At the moment, due to COVID, almost everything is cloud-based. That allows the collaboration to be more efficient. That means you can have several people working on the same document or the same space at the same time.
We're using the latest version of the solution.
I would recommend this solution to other companies.
I would rate it 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.
Buyer's Guide
Microsoft 365 Business
May 2025

Learn what your peers think about Microsoft 365 Business. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Telephony manager at Allied Global
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.
Group IT Manager at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
President at Northcoast Research
Seamless outsourcing of email servers, very scalable, and overall quite reliable
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
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.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for more than five years. I can't remember exactly when we originally implemented it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and technical support?
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.
How was the initial setup?
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.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
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.
Head of infrastructure and security at New Delhi Television Ltd
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.
How are customer service and technical 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.
Tech Architecture Manager at Accenture
The solution has user-friendly features for beginners and is easy to install on a laptop or PC
Pros and Cons
- "I would recommend Microsoft 365 Business to new users because it has user-friendly features for beginners."
- "The solution’s cost could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use Microsoft 365 Business because it can integrate. If I work in Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, or Excel, my team can also open the same files without any issues.
What is most valuable?
I would recommend Microsoft 365 Business to new users because it has user-friendly features for beginners.
What needs improvement?
The solution’s cost could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Microsoft 365 Business for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability and performance are better when it runs on a MacBook than on a Windows laptop.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft 365 Business is not a scalable solution. If you want to increase your storage, there is an additional cost, which is expensive.
More than 10,000 users are using Microsoft 365 Business in our organization globally.
How was the initial setup?
Installing Microsoft 365 Business on the server is moderately complex, but installing it on your personal laptop or PC is easy.
What other advice do I have?
We use the cloud version of Microsoft 365 Business.
Overall, I rate Microsoft 365 Business an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Director Comercial at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Onscreen help and an improved user interface make this suite an improved standard business solution
Pros and Cons
- "The interface is now more user-friendly than the previous versions of Microsoft Office."
- "Bandwidth usage is not always the same depending on the network connection."
What is our primary use case?
I am not a technical person, I am from the sales side and more on the commercial side of things. Our company is in Mozambique and we are the main Dell EMC repair center and service provider.
My main use case for Office 365 is really to type documents with Word, to prepare presentations with the PowerPoint, and also to do spreadsheets with Excel. The product in the suite that I use the most is Word. PowerPoint and Excel to a somewhat lesser extent. But I do use all three frequently.
We also resell the product so we do deployments for our customers as well.
What is most valuable?
With Office, the interface is now more user-friendly than the previous versions of Microsoft Office. The functionality and ability to work offline are also great. There are more helpful tools in the interfacer now. For example, if you are working with Excel and you are typing a formula, Office 365 gives you tips as you work if you do something wrong. It will identify what is wrong and then you can apply the corrections. Things like that make the product more intuitive and helpful. The previous version did not have that kind of help to this extent. So, the most valuable features are the ability to work offline, the ability to have tips when writing formulas, and the improved more user-friendly interface.
I believe one thing I enjoy more about the experience of using the product is that it now the basic features that I use most frequently are easier to find, access, and manage. This helps to make my work easier and speed up productivity.
What needs improvement?
Microsoft could still work on the bandwidth used with Office 365. It does not seem to behave the same depending on the networks that I am working on. Sometimes I can tell the program uses more or less bandwidth and actually measure the difference. I believe that this can be enhanced to be independent of the network that I am working on. The bandwidth consumption should always be about the same.
Some features of specific products could be more user-friendly. For instance, in Excel, some functionalities like the Pivot tables are not always so easy to use. Right now if you want to create a new formula, you need to have some knowledge about programming in Visual Basic. It does not seem to me that this should be a requirement. So you can type a command and then set up a new formula that is not listed on standard functions supplied with Excel. For users who do not understand the basics of programming and VBA, that really becomes an impossible mission. They may know that they can create a formula and what they might want it to do but they do not know how to do it. So if they do not find the formula in what is provided, then they really have to forget using Excel for that type of solution. If they knew how to do the programming they can do virtually anything through Excel, but they need to have the ability to do the programming and develop the formula. It does not really have to be that way. Microsoft could expand those capabilities.
One final issue we have has to do with the backups. Microsoft does not assure the backups of the information that you store at their data centers. So besides deploying Office 365 as a solution, you also need a backup solution specifically for Office 365 on the cloud. We definitely recommend Office 365, but unfortunately in our country — specifically for the public companies — it is not easy to sell because we have some strict policies and regulations regarding data. Public companies cannot store information outside of the country. So, since Microsoft Office 365 is a Cloud product some public companies can not go for that option. They still have to work with previous versions of the product. Private sector companies do not have this type of restriction. We can only recommend the product when interested customers can do it within the proper guidelines.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Office 365 for about one year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Office 365 is a stable product. Besides the issues with the bandwidth use where sometimes the product uses more bandwidth depending on the network, it performs well and it is very stable and very reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have done sales and installations for SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) as well as for enterprise companies. The issues with scalability would be budget and Internet bandwidth. If the money is there it is not an issue.
How are customer service and technical support?
My technicians deal with Microsoft support if they have to. Mostly they will take care of issues themselves. They have a dedicated contact and a direct portal for support purposes. So that is great. If a technician needs to open a ticket for a customer, the technician can open himself and go straight to the support portal to log the tickets and carry on from there. In terms of response time, I am not exactly sure because I am not directly involved.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, I was using Microsoft on a version from 2016. So it really is not a complete switch of products as it is still the Microsoft solution. It is just a newer version.
How was the initial setup?
I do not think the installation was easy but that is because we have around a hundred users. I did not manage the installation, but I heard from the technical guys that it is generally easier than the previous versions. We signed an enterprise agreement with Microsoft. With that, we got the keys and we got the centralized management panel from where we deploy the Office on all the endpoints. So this made it easier. For the previous versions, the technical guy had to go to each user machine to make the installation through a compact disc. But with volume licensing installation is centralized and the IT manager deployed remotely to the endpoints.
What about the implementation team?
We handle the setup and the deployment in house. We have a separate team with more-or-less 30 technicians. Some of them are specifically certified on Microsoft products through the partnership that we have with Microsoft. So, depending on the infrastructure that our customer has, we can send out as many as three technicians if it is to be deployed for say 200 users. When we need to do a mailbox migration, most of them have to be migrated at the same time. In that case, we allocate two to three technicians to do it as quickly as possible. If we are talking about enterprise companies with 1000 users — depending on what the customer requires in terms of delivery time — we might allocate as many as 20 guys. It is more likely we will allocate 10 guys. It basically depends on the customer's requirements.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for the product is a bit of a tricky question. In terms of the total cost of ownership, I can say that it is expensive. It is a fair price, but in our country or another country with economies similar to Mozambique, the pricing structure may be a little high and prohibitive. The first issue is the volatility of the exchange rate because our currency, the Metical, is very volatile related to the dollar. The problem here is the customer has an agreement and when he realized that he wants to add some other applications or services or something else, he has the expectation of price based on what he signed on the first agreement. But when he sees the new price, it could become a lot higher than expected because of the exchange rate. It would be nice if somehow Microsoft had some flexibility with the initial agreement so that pricing would not fluctuate dramatically because of the exchange rate.
Another thing that factors into the pricing is that the Internet connection and Internet bandwidth is still very expensive here in Mozambique. So it is not always an easy decision to make the migration to Office 365 due to these two variables.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend the Microsoft Office 365 product to clients. We are able to do proofs-of-concept with clients who are interested and carry forward from there.
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Microsoft Office 365 as eight-and-a-half.
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: Partner

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