Specialized Office 365 Plans for Organizations

Microsoft offers Office 365 enterprise plans to organizations with specific requirements related to regulatory or compliance issues, geographic requirements, or cost. These plans, based on core Office 365 plans, serve organizations with special needs: nonprofits, educational institutions, governments, and customers in Europe and China. The included components and purchase eligibility requirements for these plans vary from the core versions, but they could offer less expense, or better regulatory compliance, for eligible organizations.

In addition to these Microsoft-hosted, multitenant enterprise plans, Microsoft also offers consumer and small business Office 365 plans, as well as a legacy plan for dedicated on-site implementations of Office 365, which are not covered here.

Office 365 Plan Features

For most organizations, Microsoft offers four enterprise-level Office 365 subscription plans: Office 365 E1, E3, E5, and K1. (See the chart “Office 365 Plans for Organizations“.)

Office 365 E1 plans provide Microsoft-hosted versions of productivity software, including Office Online for document viewing and editing, Exchange Online for e-mail hosting, SharePoint Online, Skype for Business Online for unified communications, and Yammer Enterprise for enterprise social networking, plus other features such as Groups (shared resources), Teams (chat-based workspace), and Planner (lightweight task management).