Evaluating Office 365

Office 365 is a set of subscription plans that combines Microsoft-hosted services, such as Exchange Online e-mail, with on-premises software, such as the Office desktop suite and Office applications for iPad. Office 365 offers cost, scalability, and other advantages over on-premises deployments of software, such as Exchange Server, and its technical capabilities are similar to the corresponding server applications on-premises. However, customers have to trust Microsoft to keep the system working and protect their data, and they will have to match Microsoft’s cadence for upgrades.

This report summarizes the most important factors for deciding between Office 365 and on-premises installations for systems to support e-mail, Web-based document sharing, unified communications, and other collaboration functions. It also briefly outlines some alternatives that fall between Office 365 and on-premises systems, including Office 365 dedicated hosting services, which share the Office 365 brand but offer a different feature set than the multitenant Office 365 services offered to most organizations.