Microsoft 365 Organization Premium vs E3, and One Powerful Tool in Both That Will Revolutionize Your IT

You've decided upon Microsoft 365 and the Azure cloud for your company. Congratulations. We believe you've made the right option.

Now that you've chosen M365, it is time to select a plan. While there are numerous to choose from, IT Support Guys generally manages M365's Business Premium and E3 (enterprise) offerings.

Other strategies like Business Standard and E5 have their benefits, but we discover that considering Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 offers companies the very best bundle of features that are essential for any company.

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

Keep in mind, for the purposes of this post, all references to "E3" are specific to Microsoft 365 E3. This plan is various from the legacy E3 offering, called "Microsoft Office E3."

If you have a concern about any of these plans or wish to consult our tech experts 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 illustrating Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3

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

M365 comes packaged in many various prepare for house, service, and enterprise. With differing prices and features, Microsoft provides you alternatives for what plan fits your scenario the best.

What is Azure cloud?

Graphic showing numerous computers sending out data as much as the Microsoft Azure cloud, a key element of Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3 Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform that was launched in 2010, solving issues consisting of storage, computation, and analysis of information 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 companies to reduce their overhead by reducing storage costs, while also centralizing information for much better file sharing, and reinforcing backup and disaster recovery efforts.

What is Business Premium?

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

Business Premium costs $20 per user per month and comes with a 50 GB mailbox storage limit and a 1 TB storage limit in OneDrive. Just 300 Business Premium licenses can be assigned to a company prior to it should begin purchasing business strategies.

What is E3?

Microsoft 365 E3 is M365's initial business strategy, can be found in as the second-most packed plan feature-wise behind E5.

E3 expenses $32/user/month and features limitless mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to how many business users can be on E3 strategies. It also features some of the leading security features offered.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune

A graphic revealing linked devices to Microsoft Intune

ITSG spotlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 plans due to the fact that they provide so many features that make your cloud experience better.

The key feature that makes these plans elite is Microsoft Intune, which controls access for mobile devices, including mobile phones, tablets, and laptop computers.

It likewise enables managers to set extra security steps on non-company devices and limits on what remote workers can gain access to.

So why does that make Intune a gamechanger?

Anybody who has actually needed to establish a brand-new computer or mobile phone has actually likely had to invest hours personalizing their settings, restoring files, and keeping in mind passwords.

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

Matched 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 AD makes on-premise identity and endpoint management redundant.

Without any inconvenience and no server, Intune saves time and money that you can assign elsewhere.

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

Additionally, with Azure sync, you can wed your on-premise and cloud servers to develop a hybrid setup, the supreme choice for your IT.

Why Business Premium and E3?-- What else?

Beyond Intune, there are other functions readily available in both Business Premium and E3 that make them stand above the less-expensive strategies.

Both plans include 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 organization from losing data that is critical to any legal procedures. Company Premium may run into storage issues if Litigation Hold is used to freeze too much data.

Security

The genuine worth you get with E3's rate boost is its extra security functions, which are extensive. E3 features Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the full version of Azure Active Directory.

E3 also comes with the capability to encrypt e-mails with the click of a button. This guarantees that delicate info is opened by the intended receiving celebration, who should visit with a Microsoft or business account.

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

Company Premium just includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (formerly referred to as Advanced Threat Protection).

Let's quickly discuss simply what you get with these features.

The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that evaluates the traffic being available in and out of your network, identifying the behavior of entities within your organization. By discovering the behavior of users and other parties accessing your data, ATA can accurately detect and signal you in the case that anything is suspicious.

Credential guard utilizes virtualized security to keep login qualifications hidden from all software application, other than for programs that require them. This additional security shops information in an isolated area to lower the chances of credential theft.

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

Mentioning user mistake, Windows Information Protection prevents the accidental leakage of information by workers through email, social networks, and comparable apps. WIP notifies users that their action will share or disclose work details before the action is validated. This defense ends up being more important as employees remain remote.

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

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

Organization Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based e-mail filter that identifies malicious links and accessories before they enter your environment. Protector also identifies malicious files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Defender is enough to protect your service overall and is an excellent primary step in securing your cloud. If you desire the most protection Microsoft can offer, that will require among their business plans.

E3 and its sophisticated security functions permit companies to carefully stabilize which staff members have access to perform which tasks, producing a structured, safe cloud environment.

Whatever else

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

One big perk of E3 is the ability to access the Microsoft Office suite via a remote desktop, implying you fixed price it support can deploy its productivity apps to shared computer systems in your company.

The capability to trigger shared computers remotely also comes with E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer system can continue to work on their files.

Likewise exclusive to enterprise plans is Azure rights management, which protects information that is shared externally. When secured files are emailed to another business, the protection stays on the file.

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

E3 even more strengthens your compliance with data loss prevention (DLP). If your service deals with delicate, exclusive, or customer information, DLP can identify and protect it from being shared. Utilizing "deep