Executive Summary

Contributing Analysts: Rob Helm, Wes Miller, Don Retallack, Rob Sanfilippo, Andrew Snodgrass

Office 365 delivers Microsoft-hosted services such as Exchange e-mail and on-premises software such as the Office suite under a subscription license. The services can help organizations reduce costs, add and remove capacity quickly, and improve uptime and security, while the software can reduce licensing costs and mitigate license compliance risks.

This report provides an overview of Office 365 and its likely evolution through mid-2016. The report focuses on services and software delivered by the Office 365 E1 and E3 subscription plans for enterprises and previews the upcoming E5 plan.

The report will help current Office 365 customers prepare for upcoming features and assess the value of the features against any potential security or compliance risks. The report could also help Office 365 customers find alternatives for Office 365 features that Microsoft is likely to retire. Organizations considering adoption of Organizations considering adoption of Office 365 can use this report to predict what Office 365’s capabilities will be when their migrations will begin.