Making the Business Case for Office 365TM Making the Business Case for Office 365TM • Microsoft is a cloud vendor that organizations can trust to remain in the cloud business – and to continue to innovate – for many years to come. • However, no vendor or solution can be all things to all customers. Consequently, there are some limitations in Office 365 that can be better addressed through the use of archiving, security, encryption, business continuity, disaster recovery and other solutions that are offered by third parties. ABOUT THIS WHITE PAPER This white paper was sponsored by Proofpoint – information about the company is included at the end of this paper. WHAT IS OFFICE 365? Virtually anyone reading this white paper is no doubt generally familiar with what Office 365 is and does. However, in this section we simply want to provide a quick overview of the basics of Office 365 that might not be familiar to all readers, particularly the breadth of versions available in Office 365. THE SHIFT FROM CAPEX TO OPEX The shift to cloud services offers organizations of all sizes a way to gain access to communication and collaboration services without incurring the capital costs to build an on-premises environment, nor accepting the responsibility and related costs of managing the resulting on-premises infrastructure. Since Office 365 is, for all intents and purposes, rented as a cloud service and key infrastructure elements are not owned, organizations must continue to pay monthly or annual fees for the service. By no means is that a bad thing, but simply a different way of thinking about shifting the software mindset from acquisition costs to licensing fees: the shift from capital expenditures (CAPEX) to operating expenditures (OPEX). To be sure, there are pros and cons associated with this shift. Among the benefits of operating internal infrastructure is the ability to bypass one or two upgrade cycles and thereby avoid the costs associated with migration from one version of Exchange (or some other platform) to another. For example, many organizations migrating to Exchange Online are migrating from Exchange 2003 or 2007, having never deployed Exchange 2010 or 2013. These organizations have been able to use products purchased a decade ago without incurring the potentially significant cost of a migration. Once an organization has shifted to Office 365, that option is no longer available. However, this also means that software is continually up-to-date and current with new standards, file formats, etc. So, by deploying Office 365, organizations can realize the benefits associated with migration to new platforms without incurring the difficulties associated with the migration process. KEY FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS IN OFFICE 365 Office 365 consists of a variety of offerings, some or all of which are offered in the various plans offered by Microsoft: • Business-grade email, calendaring and scheduling functionality with a 50 Gb mailbox. • Full copies of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher and OneNote on up to five PCs or Macs. • Microsoft Office on up to five mobile devices. • Online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. • One terabyte of storage using Microsoft OneDrive for Business per user. ©2015 Osterman Research, Inc. 2 Making the Business Case for Office 365TM • Skype for Business, which offers voice, instant messaging and videoconferencing. • Social media capabilities using Yammer. • Various other tools and capabilities, including corporate intranets, Office Graph, a corporate video portal, business intelligence tools, group policy tools, and various compliance tools, among others. SELECTING THE BEST PLAN FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION Office 365 is available in a variety of use plans, at a number of price points, and tailored for several different markets, as shown in Figure 4 in the Appendix to this report. One of the advantages of Office 365, as with any cloud-based messaging and collaboration solution, is the ability to mix and match plans to suit various constituencies within an organization. For example, full-time information workers can be outfitted with a full suite of Office 365 solutions, while temporary workers, those who work in the field, or roaming employees (such as retail workers) can be enabled with a less feature-rich – and less expensive – plan. This can save significantly on communication and collaboration costs in an organization relative to the traditional, on-premises delivery model. SHOULD YOU CONSIDER OFFICE 365? Should decision makers consider Office 365 for deployment in their organizations? In a word, yes, and millions already have. Microsoft’s own numbers show that as of late 2015 there are more than 60 million active Office 365 users in the commercial space and more than 18 million consumer subscribersi. Office 365 is a robust offering with a large number of features that is continually being improved and updated. And, it’s offered by a large, profitable and financially stable company that is now fully committed to the delivery of its offerings through the cloud first. OFFICE 365 CAN LOWER THE COSTS OF COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION Office 365, as well as other cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions, can significantly lower the costs associated with providing these capabilities to end users in a number of ways: • Minimal up-front costs One of the most significant ways in which Office 365 can lower the cost of ownership for communication and collaboration is my eliminating most of the upfront costs associated with deploying new systems. For example, a fresh deployment of Microsoft Exchange or an upgrade from one version of Exchange to another can be an expensive proposition because of the need to purchase servers, appliances, software and the other infrastructure elements necessary to support it. By using Office 365, the majority of these expenses are eliminated. Of course, most of the desktop and/or mobile infrastructure costs must still be incurred, but these represent only a fraction of the total cost of ownership for deploying a new system. • Potentially lower ongoing costs Another important advantage of Office 365 is its ability to eliminate virtually all of the ongoing costs of ownership associated with communication and collaboration. For example, an on-premises deployment of Exchange would require periodic upgrades of hardware as new users are added to the system, additional servers or appliances are added to deal with new threats, etc. These costs are eliminated when using Office 365. Another important benefit of Office 365 is its ability to enable “rightsizing” of the communication and collaboration infrastructure. For example, if an organization has deployed an infrastructure capable of supporting 500 users, but then must ©2015 Osterman Research, Inc. 3 Please complete the form to gain access to this content Email * First name * Last Name * Access Now
Making the Business Case for Office 365TM • Microsoft is a cloud vendor that organizations can trust to remain in the cloud business – and to continue to innovate – for many years to come. • However, no vendor or solution can be all things to all customers. Consequently, there are some limitations in Office 365 that can be better addressed through the use of archiving, security, encryption, business continuity, disaster recovery and other solutions that are offered by third parties. ABOUT THIS WHITE PAPER This white paper was sponsored by Proofpoint – information about the company is included at the end of this paper. WHAT IS OFFICE 365? Virtually anyone reading this white paper is no doubt generally familiar with what Office 365 is and does. However, in this section we simply want to provide a quick overview of the basics of Office 365 that might not be familiar to all readers, particularly the breadth of versions available in Office 365. THE SHIFT FROM CAPEX TO OPEX The shift to cloud services offers organizations of all sizes a way to gain access to communication and collaboration services without incurring the capital costs to build an on-premises environment, nor accepting the responsibility and related costs of managing the resulting on-premises infrastructure. Since Office 365 is, for all intents and purposes, rented as a cloud service and key infrastructure elements are not owned, organizations must continue to pay monthly or annual fees for the service. By no means is that a bad thing, but simply a different way of thinking about shifting the software mindset from acquisition costs to licensing fees: the shift from capital expenditures (CAPEX) to operating expenditures (OPEX). To be sure, there are pros and cons associated with this shift. Among the benefits of operating internal infrastructure is the ability to bypass one or two upgrade cycles and thereby avoid the costs associated with migration from one version of Exchange (or some other platform) to another. For example, many organizations migrating to Exchange Online are migrating from Exchange 2003 or 2007, having never deployed Exchange 2010 or 2013. These organizations have been able to use products purchased a decade ago without incurring the potentially significant cost of a migration. Once an organization has shifted to Office 365, that option is no longer available. However, this also means that software is continually up-to-date and current with new standards, file formats, etc. So, by deploying Office 365, organizations can realize the benefits associated with migration to new platforms without incurring the difficulties associated with the migration process. KEY FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS IN OFFICE 365 Office 365 consists of a variety of offerings, some or all of which are offered in the various plans offered by Microsoft: • Business-grade email, calendaring and scheduling functionality with a 50 Gb mailbox. • Full copies of Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher and OneNote on up to five PCs or Macs. • Microsoft Office on up to five mobile devices. • Online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. • One terabyte of storage using Microsoft OneDrive for Business per user. ©2015 Osterman Research, Inc. 2 Making the Business Case for Office 365TM • Skype for Business, which offers voice, instant messaging and videoconferencing. • Social media capabilities using Yammer. • Various other tools and capabilities, including corporate intranets, Office Graph, a corporate video portal, business intelligence tools, group policy tools, and various compliance tools, among others. SELECTING THE BEST PLAN FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION Office 365 is available in a variety of use plans, at a number of price points, and tailored for several different markets, as shown in Figure 4 in the Appendix to this report. One of the advantages of Office 365, as with any cloud-based messaging and collaboration solution, is the ability to mix and match plans to suit various constituencies within an organization. For example, full-time information workers can be outfitted with a full suite of Office 365 solutions, while temporary workers, those who work in the field, or roaming employees (such as retail workers) can be enabled with a less feature-rich – and less expensive – plan. This can save significantly on communication and collaboration costs in an organization relative to the traditional, on-premises delivery model. SHOULD YOU CONSIDER OFFICE 365? Should decision makers consider Office 365 for deployment in their organizations? In a word, yes, and millions already have. Microsoft’s own numbers show that as of late 2015 there are more than 60 million active Office 365 users in the commercial space and more than 18 million consumer subscribersi. Office 365 is a robust offering with a large number of features that is continually being improved and updated. And, it’s offered by a large, profitable and financially stable company that is now fully committed to the delivery of its offerings through the cloud first. OFFICE 365 CAN LOWER THE COSTS OF COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION Office 365, as well as other cloud-based communication and collaboration solutions, can significantly lower the costs associated with providing these capabilities to end users in a number of ways: • Minimal up-front costs One of the most significant ways in which Office 365 can lower the cost of ownership for communication and collaboration is my eliminating most of the upfront costs associated with deploying new systems. For example, a fresh deployment of Microsoft Exchange or an upgrade from one version of Exchange to another can be an expensive proposition because of the need to purchase servers, appliances, software and the other infrastructure elements necessary to support it. By using Office 365, the majority of these expenses are eliminated. Of course, most of the desktop and/or mobile infrastructure costs must still be incurred, but these represent only a fraction of the total cost of ownership for deploying a new system. • Potentially lower ongoing costs Another important advantage of Office 365 is its ability to eliminate virtually all of the ongoing costs of ownership associated with communication and collaboration. For example, an on-premises deployment of Exchange would require periodic upgrades of hardware as new users are added to the system, additional servers or appliances are added to deal with new threats, etc. These costs are eliminated when using Office 365. Another important benefit of Office 365 is its ability to enable “rightsizing” of the communication and collaboration infrastructure. For example, if an organization has deployed an infrastructure capable of supporting 500 users, but then must ©2015 Osterman Research, Inc. 3
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