Microsoft 365 Organization Premium vs E3, and One Powerful Tool in Both That Will Revolutionize Your IT
You've chosen upon Microsoft 365 and the Azure cloud for your organization. Congratulations. We believe you've made the right option.
Now that you've picked M365, it is time to select a plan. While there are numerous to select from, IT Support Guys generally handles M365's Business Premium and E3 (enterprise) offerings.
Other strategies like Business Standard and E5 have their benefits, but we discover that thinking about Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 provides business the very best package of functions that are important for any company.
In this post, we will cover the distinctions between Business Premium and Microsoft's very first business offering. You might discover that neither offering is for you, selecting the less expensive Business Standard strategy, or the immersive E5 strategy.

If you have a question about any of these strategies or wish to consult our tech professionals 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 design depicting Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3
Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's subscription productivity suite that can tie all of your preferred Microsoft Office applications together with world-class cloud capabilities and air-tight security.
M365 comes packaged in various different plans for home, business, and enterprise. With differing costs and features, Microsoft gives you choices for what plan fits your scenario the very best.
What is Azure cloud?
Graphic highlighting numerous computers sending information as much as the Microsoft Azure cloud, a crucial component of Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3 Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform that was released in 2010, fixing issues consisting of storage, computation, and analysis of information through virtualization.
Azure offers solutions like Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Cloud services allow businesses to minimize their overhead by reducing storage costs, while also centralizing information for much better file sharing, and boosting backup and catastrophe recovery efforts.
What is Business Premium?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is M365's leading offering for little to medium-sized organizations, an upgrade on its Business Basic and Business Standard offerings.
Business Premium costs $20 per user monthly and comes with a 50 GB mailbox storage limitation and a 1 TB storage limitation in OneDrive. Only 300 Business Premium licenses can be designated to a company prior to it must begin acquiring business plans.
What is E3?
Microsoft 365 E3 is M365's preliminary enterprise strategy, being available in as the second-most loaded plan feature-wise behind E5.
E3 expenses $32/user/month and comes with unrestricted mailbox and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to the number of business users can be on E3 strategies. It likewise comes with a few of the top security functions available.
Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune
A graphic revealing connected gadgets to Microsoft Intune
ITSG spotlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 plans due to the fact that they provide numerous functions that make your cloud experience much better.The crucial function that makes these plans elite is Microsoft Intune, which controls access for mobile phones, consisting of mobile phones, tablets, and laptops.
It also enables supervisors to set extra security steps on non-company gadgets and limits on what remote workers can access.
So why does that make Intune a gamechanger?
Anybody who has actually needed to set up a new computer system or smart device has likely needed to spend hours tailoring their settings, bring back files, and keeping in mind passwords.
Those days remain in the past with Intune, which allows you to create a default image for release. When you set up a brand-new computer system, Intune enables you to strike the ground running without wasted time.Matched together with Azure Active Directory, Intune eliminates the requirement 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 hassle and no server, Intune conserves money and time that you can assign in other places.If you currently have a server, Intune and Azure AD are still suitable with your environment.
Additionally, with Azure sync, you can wed your on-premise and cloud servers to develop a hybrid setup, the ultimate option for your IT.
Why Business Premium and E3?-- What else?
Beyond Intune, there are other features offered in both Business Premium and E3 that make them stand above the less-expensive strategies.
Both plans come with Microsoft's best-in-class communication hub, Teams, along with SharePoint Online and Planner.Both Business Premium and E3 come with Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are important functions that safeguard your service from losing information that is crucial to any legal proceedings. Organization Premium might run into storage issues if Litigation Hold is used to freeze too much information.
Security

E3 likewise includes the capability to secure e-mails with the click of a button. This makes sure that sensitive details is opened by the designated receiving celebration, who should log in with a Microsoft or business account.
A screenshot of Outlook in Microsoft 365 E3, with how to position file encryption on an email.
Service Premium only comes with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (previously referred to as Advanced Threat Protection).
Let's quickly discuss just what you get with these features.
The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that examines the traffic being available in and out of your network, diagnosing the behavior of entities within your company. By discovering the habits of users and other parties accessing your data, ATA can properly spot and alert you in the event that anything is suspicious.Credential guard utilizes virtualized security to keep login qualifications hidden from all software, except for programs that need them. This additional security stores data in a separated location to reduce the chances of credential theft.
AppLocker allows managers to manage which files and applications that users have access to, including executable files and installer files. This secures you internally, as user mistake is a leading reason for cybersecurity breaches.
Speaking of user error, Windows Information Protection avoids the accidental leakage of data by workers through computer repairs nerang e-mail, social networks, and comparable apps. WIP notifies users that their action will share or reveal work information before the action is validated. This protection becomes more important as workers stay remote.
Furthermore, with WIP, companies can preserve an archive after a worker leaves, while still deactivating their license.All these functions are looped with the complete version of Azure Active Directory, where you can monitor and govern your business's entire cloud environment. The full variation permits additional features like group gain access to management, advanced security reports, multi-factor authentication with conditional gain access to, and more.
Company Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based email filter that identifies destructive links and attachments prior to they enter your environment. Protector likewise recognizes destructive files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Defender is enough to protect your company total and is an excellent primary step in protecting your cloud. If you want the most defense Microsoft can offer, that will require one of their enterprise plans.
E3 and its sophisticated security functions enable organizations to carefully stabilize which staff members have access to carry out which tasks, creating a structured, safe cloud environment.
Everything else
If you are not as fretted about your security, think about some of the other features of E3 that you might lose out on with Business Premium.
One huge perk of E3 is the ability to access the Microsoft Office suite via a remote desktop, implying you can deploy its performance apps to shared computer systems in your business.The capability to trigger shared computers remotely also includes E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer system can continue to deal with their files.
Also exclusive to business strategies is Azure rights management, which secures information that is shared externally. When protected files are emailed to another company, the protection stays on the file.
Like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, Azure rights management is vital for compliance and may be needed.
E3 further strengthens your compliance with information loss prevention (DLP). If your company deals with delicate, proprietary, or consumer data, DLP can determine and protect it from being shared. Utilizing "deep content analysis" and data-matching through keywords, DLP will show a pop-up alert that warns users prior to sharing flagged data.
Other enterprise-only functions consist of Excel PowerPivot, and PowerQuery, as well as Infopath, an application for distributing and sending electronic kinds. In-place archiving for Exchange is likewise limited to business.
These are just some of the extra features of E3, with more that are currently present, and more that will be added gradually. If you believe any of these functions may be something you require, make certain to connect to ITSG before deciding.
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 Business Premium offers your company everything it requires to run and grow. That's why we recommend it to all our clients.
Security and security are a should for modern companies, however, and if your company is managing sensitive information or has rigid compliance policies-- E3 might be your best alternative. Making this choice may not be a simple task. If you are an organization larger than 300 employees, it may be a choice that is produced you.