Microsoft releases new Office 365 SMB plans

After announcing the subscription-based service in 2014, Microsoft has now made available three new Office 365 small/mid-size business plans to its existing business customers.

The three plans -- Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium -- are replacing the current Office 365 Small Business, Small Business Premium and Midsize Business plans.

The earlier planned October 1 2015 release had been pushed back to 1 December, to allow users to move to Office 2016 "more seamlessly", according to Microsoft officials.

The Business Essentials plan includes email and calendaring, online meetings, instant messaging and Lync Online video conferencing, SharePoint Online, 1TB of free OneDrive for Business cloud storage, and Yammer enterprise social-networking support, at $5 per user per month, or $60 per year.

Office 365 Business includes the complete set of Office applications for up to 5 PCs and/or Macs per user, and 1TB of free OneDrive for Business cloud storage, for $8.25 per user per month, or $99 per year. However, it doesn’t include Exchange, Lync or SharePoint online.

Finally, the Business Premium plan combines the features of Office 365 Business Essentials and Office 365 Business for $12.50 per user per month, or $150 per year.

Visit the Office website for a full comparison of the three new plans.

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