Digital Work Place Services

Microsoft’s multitude of Business and Enterprise editions — licensed as monthly or annual subscriptions — offer more advanced feature sets than the Home and Personal editions, with collaborative applications and management tools designed for meeting enterprise security and compliance challenges.

The exact mix of apps and services available with a Microsoft 365 subscription depends on which edition you’ve chosen. The following five services are common to all business and enterprise plans:

EXCHANGE ONLINE

This business-class email offering gives every Microsoft 365 subscriber in your organization a 50 GB mailbox, with the ability to access email through a web browser or using the Outlook app on Windows, a Mac, or mobile devices. Malware and spam filtering are built in, as are basic features like shared mailboxes and (for some Microsoft 365 subscriptions) advanced features like eDiscovery.

ONEDRIVE FOR BUSINESS

Every Microsoft 365 subscriber gets 1 TB of personal OneDrive storage, with sync clients available for every desktop platform. The Windows 10 client uses the same sync client as the consumer OneDrive service, keeping data in a separate location. The Files on Demand feature allows users to view and manage cloud-based storage using File Explorer. Administrators of Enterprise plans can upgrade users to unlimited storage if a terabyte is not enough.

SHAREPOINT ONLINE

The SharePoint interface is now sleek where it was once clunky, allowing teams to share files and sync information in File Explorer using the same desktop client as inn OneDrive. Both SharePoint and Exchange Online include administrative controls to restrict users from sharing confidential information outside the organization.

MICROSOFT TEAMS

This collaborative platform replaces the older Skype for Business service, offering unified communications, HD video conferencing, and instant messaging for Microsoft 365 subscribers in an organization, along with a team-and-channel-based architecture that covers much of the same feature set as alternatives like Slack. The free version of Teams allows small businesses to use the service without having to pay any license fees. In early 2020, the company announced plans to add new consumer-focused Teams features to its existing Teams for iOS and Teams for Android apps. 

ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Some Microsoft 365 plans include services targeted for specific audiences. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Business Premium plans, for example, include services for small and medium-sized businesses; these tools include Microsoft Bookings, which allows customers to schedule and manage appointments, and MileIQ, a mileage-tracking service. All Enterprise plans include the Yammer social networking service and a selection of business automation tools, including Microsoft Power Apps to build custom forms, Power Automate to streamline repetitive workflows, and Power BI Pro, an advanced business analytics tool.