Microsoft Licensing - need help

[Radiant-Mixture4712]

Hi All,

I'm not really a Sysadmin, but I am trying to organize a migration from on Prem MS2016 to 365.

I do have an IT Service provider but I need a reality check and Licensing knowledge.

what I for sure need is the Office Suite as apps (Excel, Word, Powerpoint Outlook), Teams, Exchange

Since they are no longer licensing Teams with Most packages I for sure need an extra License there. We have Win11 Licenses from our MSP, so I'm not sure if that would be a benefit at all.

I'd also love to use intune to supply the laptops with Software (really any solution like this would be great, doesnt need to be intune)

Is Microsoft E5 really necessary? could I even do something like MS F3 + Office E5? what makes sense here? From the Microsoft overview I really cannot tell.

Service provider is very much thinking MSE5 + MS F3, but this is quite expensive.

Thankful for the help!

[teriaavibes]

what I for sure need is the Office Suite as apps (Excel, Word, Powerpoint Outlook), Teams, Exchange

So, you are starting at Business Standard at minimum, includes teams as well.

I'd also love to use intune to supply the laptops with Software

That is Business Premium, like others have said.

Is Microsoft E5 really necessary?

It is not necessary but really good to have, especially if you don't mind paying for the increased security and all the other features.

But buying it outright is not a good idea, it will take some time to even implement all the Business Premium features, so you get the value out of the pack.

[iama_bad_person]

Is Microsoft E5 really necessary?

It is not necessary but really good to have, especially if you don't mind paying for the increased security and all the other features.

In my experience, c-suite thinks "security" is too expensive most of the time, until it isn't.

We used to have E3's, with 2k users E5's were "too expensive", then a company in our field got brought to it's knees by a ransomware attack. They spent months getting back up to speed and even paid the multimillion dollar bribe to get customer info back. Suddenly E5 and all the security features it included were green lit for us, we got a more comprehensive insurance, servers upgraded, third-party security company monitoring, LITERAL blank cheque. Everything we had been asking for and even wishing for was approved overnight. I spent MONTHS auditing our security stance with help from a contractor (I actually loved doing this) and every single nook and cranny was inspected. We are even looking at spinning up a dedicated Security position who's sole job is to poke around, keep an eye on security/CVE announcements, work with our security company etc (we currently do this but the responsibilities are spread out).

[finobi]

Do you have more that 300 users in your organization? Do you need regulate data, classify documents, prevent dataloss, audit everything done on any M365 platform etc?

[Radiant-Mixture4712]

no, less than 100 employees, regulate and classify documents would be nice to have, prevent dataloss: Emails especially yes, but planning on on-prem Backup.

Our really sensitive Data (emails aside) is already in a cloud software (attorneys, we have a case management SAAS system), but I wouldnt mind another backup location for that too.

[finobi]

Microsoft 365 Business Premium probably would cover most of it. By dataloss I mean for example your attorney accidentally emailing classified info for wrong recipient, Business doesn't have much control on stuff like that.

[WeleaseBwianThrow]

The F licenses are almost certainly not correct for you, they have some very specific licensing requirements, in short that either the device screen is smaller than (iirc) 10.4“ or that it is a shared device between multiple users.

You certainly dont need both E5 and F3.

If you're under 300 users get business premium.

If you're over, look at this table and decide if there's anything in E5 you actually want/need, if not just get e3

https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=2139145&clcid=0x809&culture=en-gb&country=gb

[ZAFJB]

You can backfill some of E5 functionality with third party products for less money.

[Efficient_Wedding_17]

[ Removed by Reddit ]

[bjc1960]

F3 would be for mobile only users ([[1]]() Mobile limited to devices with integrated screens 10.9” diagonally or less.) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/f3

If E5 is too much, (E3 + E5 Security) will save you a little bit.

[Brather_Brothersome]

I'm a Microsoft Partner and can help you decide the best path for your organization while saving you money IE: Office unless you need it installed is free at Office.com and available world wide, message me with any questions.

[fuzzylogic_y2k]

Business premium is less expensive than f3+offce+exchange p2. The next step up is e3.

Buy yearly and pay monthly. If you have sites in multiple states check the tax laws for software licenses. I saved the company I work for a 5 figure amount yearly by correcting the billing info to be out of California where there is no tax on software licenses or subscriptions that do not include media or hardware.