At the Microsoft Inspire conference being held this week, the company announced a number of new products and programs to their global partner network. Office 365 has been bundled with Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Their Surface as a Service program is in Australia and three partners are delivering an on-perm Azure stack for those wanting to run private cloud solutions.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 will come in two versions for business customers:
Microsoft 365 Enterprise includes Office 365 Enterprise, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Enterprise Mobility + Security and is offered in two plans – Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E5. Microsoft 365 E5 provides the latest and most advanced innovations in security, compliance, analytics, and collaboration.
Microsoft 365 Business is designed for small-to-medium sized businesses (SMB) and includes Office 365 Business Premium, security and management features for Office apps and Windows 10 devices, upgrade rights to Windows 10, and a centralized IT console. It will be available in public preview starting August 2. US pricing is set at US$20 per user per month. Factoring in current exchange rates and GST, we can expect that to be closer to $30 locally.
On-prem Azure
The Azure Stack isn’t a new announcement – more like the delivery of something that has largely been vapourware. Dell EMC, HPE and Lenovo will sell you a hardware stack that allows you to deploy the Azure Stack with Cisco and Huawei set to offer the same later this year.
The idea is you can run Azure in your own or a partner’s data centre rather than being limited to Mocrosoft’s facilities.
According to Ars Technica, HPE will offer the platform for between $300,000 and $400,000.
Surface as a Service
Although this program was announced last year, Surface as a Service has expanded with some Australian resellers offering it here.
The program is simply a leasing service – the kind that has been around for many years but Microsoft has given it a pretty name for it’s reseller partners.
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