Microsoft 365 Service 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 service. Congratulations. We believe you've made the best option.
Now that you've picked M365, it is time to choose a strategy. While there are many to select from, IT Support Guys generally manages M365's Business Premium and E3 (business) offerings.

In this post, we will cover the differences in between Business Premium and Microsoft's first enterprise offering. You might discover that neither offering is for you, opting for the cheaper Business Standard strategy, or the immersive E5 strategy.
Remember, for the purposes of this post, all referrals to "E3" specify to Microsoft 365 E3. This plan is various from the tradition E3 offering, known as "Microsoft Office E3."If you have a question about any of these strategies or wish to consult our tech specialists on which M365 bundle will move your company outermost forward, get on a call with us as quickly as possible.
What is Microsoft 365?
A style illustrating Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs E3
Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's membership productivity suite that can connect all of your favorite Microsoft Office applications together with world-class cloud capabilities and air-tight security.
M365 comes packaged in numerous various plans for home, company, and business. With differing rates and functions, Microsoft gives you options for what package fits your scenario the best.
What is Azure cloud?
Graphic illustrating several computer systems sending out information up to the Microsoft Azure cloud, a key 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, calculation, and analysis of data through virtualization.
Azure offers services like Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).Cloud services allow companies to reduce their overhead by suppressing storage expenses, while also centralizing information for better file sharing, and boosting backup and disaster healing efforts.
What is Business Premium?
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is M365's leading offering for little to medium-sized services, an upgrade on its Business Basic and Business Standard offerings.
Business Premium costs $20 per user each month and includes a 50 GB mailbox storage limitation and a 1 TB storage limit in OneDrive. Only 300 Business Premium licenses can be appointed to a company before it need to start purchasing business plans.
What is E3?
Microsoft 365 E3 is M365's initial business strategy, being available in as the second-most loaded plan feature-wise behind E5.
E3 costs $32/user/month and includes unlimited mail box and OneDrive storage. There is no cap to the number of business users can be on E3 strategies. It also features a few of the leading security features readily available.
Why Business Premium and E3?-- Microsoft Intune
A graphic showing linked devices to Microsoft Intune
ITSG highlights Business Premium and E3 as favored M365 strategies due to the fact that they offer many functions that make your cloud experience much better.The crucial feature that makes these strategies elite is Microsoft Intune, which manages gain access to for mobile devices, consisting of smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers.
It also enables managers to set additional security steps on non-company devices and limits on what remote employees can gain access to.
So why does that make Intune a gamechanger?
Anybody who has actually needed to set up a new computer or smart device has actually likely needed to spend hours customizing their settings, bring back files, and remembering passwords.
Those days remain in the past with Intune, which allows you to develop a default image for implementation. When you set up a brand-new computer system, Intune permits you to strike the ground running without wasted time.Paired together with Azure Active Directory, Intune gets rid of the need to run your own server.
With top-shelf identity management and endpoint management in the cloud, Intune and Azure ADVERTISEMENT makes on-premise identity and endpoint management redundant.
Without any trouble and no server, Intune conserves money business it support and time that you can allocate elsewhere.If you currently have a server, Intune and Azure ADVERTISEMENT are still suitable with your environment.
In addition, with Azure sync, you can marry your on-premise and cloud servers to create a hybrid setup, the ultimate option for your IT.
Why Business Premium and E3?-- What else?
Beyond Intune, there are other functions available in both Business Premium and E3 that make them stand above the less-expensive plans.
Both strategies come with Microsoft's best-in-class interaction hub, Teams, along with SharePoint Online and Planner.Both Business Premium and E3 include Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, which are important functions that secure your organization from losing information that is important to any legal procedures. Although, Business Premium may encounter storage issues if Litigation Hold is utilized to freeze too much data.
Security
The genuine worth you get with E3's rate increase is its extra security features, which are extensive. E3 features Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA), Credential Guard, App Locker, Windows Information Protection (WIP), and the full variation of Azure Active Directory.
E3 likewise includes the capability to secure emails with the click of a button. This guarantees that delicate information is opened by the designated receiving party, who need to visit with a Microsoft or business account.
A screenshot of Outlook in Microsoft 365 E3, with how to put encryption on an email.
Organization Premium only features Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (formerly referred to as Advanced Threat Protection).
Let's rapidly go over simply what you get with these functions.
The headliner here is ATA, which is a tool that evaluates the traffic coming in and out of your network, diagnosing the habits of entities within your organization. By finding out the habits of users and other celebrations accessing your information, ATA can precisely discover and notify you in the event that anything is suspicious.Credential guard uses virtualized security to keep login credentials hidden from all software application, except for programs that require them. This extra security stores information in a separated location to lower the chances of credential theft.
AppLocker permits managers to manage which files and applications that users have access to, consisting of 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 accidental leak of information by employees through e-mail, social networks, and comparable apps. WIP notifies users that their action will share or reveal work info before the action is verified. This defense ends up being more important as employees remain remote.
Additionally, with WIP, companies can maintain an archive after a staff member leaves, while still deactivating their license.All these features are tied together with the complete variation of Azure Active Directory, where you can keep track of and govern your company's whole cloud environment. The complete version enables extra features like group gain access to management, advanced security reports, multi-factor authentication with conditional access, and more.
Organization Premium's Microsoft Defender is a cloud-based e-mail filter that determines destructive links and accessories prior to they enter your environment. Defender likewise determines malicious files and links in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Defender is enough to safeguard your service overall and is an excellent initial step in protecting your cloud. If you desire the most security Microsoft can use, that will require one of their enterprise strategies.
E3 and its sophisticated security functions allow organizations to carefully balance which workers have access to perform which jobs, producing a streamlined, safe cloud environment.
Whatever else
If you are not as fretted about your security, consider some of the other features of E3 that you might miss out on with Business Premium.
One big perk of E3 is the ability to access the Microsoft Office suite via a remote desktop, implying you can deploy its productivity apps to shared computers in your business.The ability to trigger shared computer systems from another location likewise comes with E3. With remote desktop services, every user on your shared computer system can continue to deal with their files.

Like Litigation Hold and eDiscovery, Azure rights management is important for compliance and might be needed.
E3 even more strengthens your compliance with information loss prevention (DLP). If your company manages delicate, proprietary, or customer information, DLP can determine and safeguard it from being shared. Using "deep content analysis" and data-matching through keywords, DLP will show a pop-up alert that cautions users before sharing flagged information.
Other enterprise-only functions include Excel PowerPivot, and PowerQuery, as well as Infopath, an application for dispersing and sending electronic forms. In-place archiving for Exchange is likewise restricted to enterprise.
These are simply some of the additional features of E3, with more that are currently present, and more that will be added over time. If you think any of these features may be something you need, make certain to reach out to ITSG before deciding.
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 Business Premium offers your company whatever it needs to operate and grow. That's why we recommend it to all our customers.
Safety and security are a need to for modern companies, however, and if your organization is dealing with delicate data or has rigid compliance policies-- E3 may be your finest alternative. Making this choice might not be an easy job. If you are a company larger than 300 staff members, it might be a decision that is produced you.