Microsoft 365 Company Premium vs E3, and One Powerful Tool in Both That Will Revolutionize Your IT
So, you've chosen Microsoft 365 and the Azure cloud for your business. Congratulations. We think you've made the best choice.
Now that you've chosen M365, it is time to pick a strategy. While there are lots of to choose from, IT Support Guys typically handles M365's Business Premium and E3 (business) offerings.
Other strategies like Business Standard and E5 have their advantages, but we discover that considering Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3 offers business the best plan of functions that are essential for any company.
In this post, we will cover the differences in between Business Premium and Microsoft's first business offering. You may find that neither offering is for you, opting for the cheaper Business Standard plan, or the immersive E5 plan.
Keep in mind, for the purposes of this post, all references to "E3" specify to Microsoft 365 E3. This strategy is various from the tradition E3 offering, referred to as "Microsoft Office E3."If you have a concern about any of these strategies or wish to consult our tech professionals on which M365 bundle will move your service 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 efficiency suite that can connect all of your preferred Microsoft Office applications together with first-rate cloud capabilities and air-tight security.
M365 comes packaged in numerous different plans for home, organization, and business. With varying prices and features, Microsoft offers you alternatives for what bundle fits your circumstance the very best.
What is Azure cloud?
Graphic highlighting several computer systems sending out information as much as the Microsoft Azure cloud, a key component of Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. E3 Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform that was launched in 2010, solving issues including storage, calculation, and analysis of information through virtualization.
Azure deals services like Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).Cloud services permit services to reduce their overhead by suppressing storage expenses, while also centralizing information for better file sharing, and reinforcing backup and disaster healing efforts.
What is Business Premium?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is M365's leading offering for little to medium-sized businesses, an upgrade on its Business Basic and Business Standard offerings.
Organization Premium costs $20 per user each month and features a 50 GB mailbox storage limit and a 1 TB storage limitation in OneDrive. Only 300 Business Premium licenses can be assigned to a business prior to it need to begin buying enterprise strategies.
What is E3?
Microsoft 365 E3 is M365's preliminary enterprise strategy, coming in as the second-most crammed strategy feature-wise behind E5.
E3 costs $32/user/month and includes limitless mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to the number of business users can be on E3 plans. It likewise features a few of the top security functions offered.
Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune
A graphic revealing linked devices to Microsoft Intune
ITSG highlights Business Premium and E3 as preferred M365 strategies due to the fact that they provide many features that make your cloud experience better.The key feature that makes these strategies elite is Microsoft Intune, which manages access for mobile phones, consisting of mobile phones, tablets, and laptop computers.
It likewise permits supervisors to set additional security steps on non-company devices and limitations on what remote employees can access.
Why does that make Intune a gamechanger?
Anybody who has actually had to establish a new computer system or smartphone has likely needed to invest hours personalizing their settings, bring back files, and keeping in mind passwords.

Paired together with Azure Active Directory, Intune eliminates 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 conserves money and time that you can assign elsewhere.If you already 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 produce 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 come with Microsoft's best-in-class interaction hub, Teams, along with SharePoint Online and Planner.Both Business Premium and E3 come with Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are very important functions that secure your organization from losing data that is vital to any legal proceedings. Business Premium might run into storage problems if Litigation Hold is used to freeze too much data.
Security
The real worth you get with E3's rate boost is its additional security features, which are extensive. E3 features Microsoft Advanced Threat managed it services gold coast Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the complete version of Azure Active Directory.
E3 also includes the ability to secure e-mails with the click of a button. This makes sure that delicate information is opened by the desired receiving party, who should log in with a Microsoft or company account.
A screenshot of Outlook in Microsoft 365 E3, with how to put file encryption on an e-mail.
Business Premium only includes Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (previously 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 analyzes the traffic being available in and out of your network, identifying the behavior of entities within your company. By discovering the behavior of users and other celebrations accessing your data, ATA can accurately detect and alert you in the event that anything is suspicious.Credential guard uses virtualized security to keep login credentials hidden from all software, other than for programs that need them. This additional security stores information in an isolated location to minimize the opportunities of credential theft.
AppLocker permits managers to control which files and applications that users have access to, including executable files and installer files. This safeguards you internally, as user mistake is a leading cause of cybersecurity breaches.
Mentioning user error, Windows Information Protection avoids the unintentional leakage of information by employees through email, social media, and comparable apps. WIP notifies users that their action will share or divulge work info before the action is verified. This security becomes more essential as staff members remain remote.
In addition, with WIP, organizations can maintain an archive after a staff member leaves, while still deactivating their license.All these features are looped with the complete version of Azure Active Directory, where you can keep an eye on and govern your business's entire cloud environment. The full version allows for extra 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 email filter that recognizes harmful links and attachments before they enter your environment. Protector likewise identifies destructive files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Defender is enough to protect your service general and is an excellent first step in protecting your cloud. If you want the most security Microsoft can provide, that will need one of their business plans.
E3 and its innovative security features allow organizations to thoroughly balance which workers have access to perform which tasks, producing a structured, safe cloud environment.
Whatever else
If you are not as worried about your security, consider some of the other features of E3 that you might lose out on with Business Premium.

The capability to activate shared computer systems from another location also includes E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer system can continue to deal with their files.
Exclusive to business plans is Azure rights management, which safeguards information that is shared externally. When protected files are emailed to another company, the security remains on the file.
Like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, Azure rights management is important for compliance and may be needed.
E3 further solidifies your compliance with data loss avoidance (DLP). If your organization manages sensitive, 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 notification that cautions 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 types. In-place archiving for Exchange is also restricted to business.
These are simply a few of the additional features of E3, with more that are presently present, and more that will be included with time. If you think any of these functions may be something you require, make sure to connect to ITSG prior to deciding.
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 Business Premium offers your company everything it needs to run and grow. That's why we suggest it to all our consumers.
Safety and security are a need to for modern-day companies, however, and if your company is managing sensitive information or has rigid compliance regulations-- E3 might be your best option. Making this choice may not be a simple task. If you are a company larger than 300 employees, it may be a decision that is made for you.