Advantages with O365

Costs

Costs for a subscription based model is very attractive for large organizations. Large organizations won’t need to purchase Microsoft Office for every employee or new computer station. They can estimate monthly costs easier on software based on user.

Storage

Each user is assigned a OneDrive to store their files. Access to this can be done over any medium and anywhere over the internet.

Scalability

You are able to add users almost immediately, not requiring any delay in purchasing software or installing. All is accessible over the web.

Brand

Microsoft has created the most important software suite of all time. Most of the time you can trust the brand.

Additional Integration

Add Skype for Business or Lync or SharePoint for seamless collaboration. All owned by Microsoft.

Disadvantages with O365

Costs

Initial costs for Office 365 may be very low however there are other costs to take into consideration and may not provide all of the services your business requires. All of the support they provide, require you to support your own environment. You may still have to hire a consultant to help troubleshooting and maintain your local area network.

Data Privacy

One of the biggest problems we find is the lack of data privacy. Microsoft has a large worldwide infrastructure however location of data may be a bit of a mystery.  Data location and consistency cannot be pinpointed or guaranteed. For most Canadian companies that need to satisfy compliancy, this is a deal breaker.

Data Security

Having all of your business documents and email communications located somewhere for Microsoft to handle may not be the ideal situation. For some companies if not most, will be uncomfortable with that. Companies would prefer their own data to be controlled by their own employees rather than giving it away to Microsoft.

Compatibility Problems

Running the latest and greatest office suite will require newer versions of any OS. A large percentage of offices probably have not yet upgraded to Windows 10, or have budgets for this.

Flexibility

Office 365 comes with many options for businesses to use, however everyone needs software and functionality to be flexible. When it comes to customizing an app, this will be difficult. In addition, the forced updates by Microsoft may break existing customizations.

Sending Limits

Office 365 limits the amount of mails sent per hour per organization.

Not Fully Utilized

Most people don’t really use all of the functionality of Office 365. It has been known that users only use around 20% of the features that Office 365 offers.