Microsoft 365 Government: What’s in the Box?

• Microsoft 365 Government offers better regulatory compliance for U.S. governmental organizations than Microsoft 365 commercial enterprise offerings.
• With a greater level of regulatory compliance, fewer features are available, which may significantly reduce the value of Microsoft 365 Government for some organizations.
• Customers should enlist experienced consultants to assess the value and recommend additional services before committing to Microsoft 365 Government.

Microsoft 365 Government offerings closely mirror Microsoft 365 Enterprise commercial offerings but offer compliance with FedRAMP and other regulatory compliance standards that apply to U.S. government entities and their partners. However, Microsoft 365 Government offerings also lack several features of the enterprise commercial offerings, and the differences are difficult to track, even for Microsoft and its partners.

This report provides a survey of the three major product areas of Microsoft 365— which encompasses Office 365, Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), and Windows Enterprise—and discusses feature gaps or availability delays in each area. It focuses on Microsoft 365 Government offerings for information workers who have dedicated PCs and the customer profile where feature gaps are likely to have the most impact.