Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite, Office 365, debuted in 2011. Over the past ten years, users have enjoyed a variety of communication, security, compliance, and automation features. The app suite was rebranded to Microsoft 365 in 2017 and launched the popular collaboration application, Teams. As of March 1, 2022, the Microsoft 365 prices for their business suites will be increasing. Here are the details:
New Pricing Information
The Microsoft 365 price increases are as follows:
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic: up 20% per user
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium: up 10% per user
- Office 365 E1: up 25% per user
- Office 365 E3: up 15% per user
- Office 365 E5: up 12.5% per use
Education and consumer products are unaffected by the price changes.
A Full Decade of Innovation, Service, and Value
Microsoft remains committed to providing users with innovative solutions. Over the past decade, they’ve consistently re-invested resources in order to adapt to the changing technological landscape. Since Microsoft 365 was released, 24 applications and over 1400 features have been added, including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, Whiteboard, and more.
Communication and Collaboration
Over 250 million monthly active users rely on Microsoft Teams to connect with their colleagues. Teams is the only integrated solution where businesses can meet, chat, collaborate, and automate—without disrupting their workflow. Over 300 new features were added in 2020, including background effects, large gallery view, ‘raise hand’ functionality, live reactions, breakout rooms, live captions with speaker attribution, and many more.
Security and Compliance
Cybersecurity is an ever-evolving landscape, and businesses must constantly adapt in order to reduce their risk of attack. Microsoft 365 includes a variety of attack reduction capabilities to keep users safe from ransomware and other threats. These features include data loss prevention (DLP) for both email and documents, sensitivity labels, and message encryption.
AI and Automation
Microsoft 365 utilizes AI-powered innovations, helping users enhance their writing, designing, and presentation skills. Cloud-powered AI features will automatically create engaging maps, charts, and tables in Excel; manage your inbox and remove clutter in Outlook; and provide real-time translation, captions, and transcription capabilities, making it easy to collaborate with your global team.
At BSC Solutions Group, our goal is to keep our clients informed of any new developments that may impact their services and IT budgets.
