Three SMB Office 365 plans set for October launch

Time for change as business road map for cloud Office continues to evolve

Microsoft is gearing up to launch its new Office 365 for small business plans on 1 October.

The three new plans will aim to meet the needs of businesses with at least one employee or as many as 250. They will replace the current options – Small Business, Small Business Premium, and Midsize Business – available to SMBs over time, according to Kirk Gregersen, writing for the vendor's official Office blog.

The new plans are:

*Office 365 Business
Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Publisher, with 1TB of OneDrive for Business cloud storage;

*Office 365 Business Essentials
Core cloud-based business services, including email and calendaring, Office Online, online meetings, IM, videoconferencing, cloud storage, and file sharing; and

*Office 365 Business Premium
A wrap of the Office 365 Business and Business Essentials plans.

Customers will not have to do anything until their first subscription renewal after 1 October 2015, Gregersen wrote.

"[However] starting on 1 October 2014, we will be making changes for existing customers to bring them some of the new plan benefits before they move. Small Business and Small Business Premium customers will see their seat cap raised from 25 to 300 while Midsize Business customers (whose seat cap is already 300) will see their price be reduced from $15 (£8.93) per user per month to $12.50 per user per month," he wrote.

Existing customers will get the cheaper price the next time they renew. New Midsize Business customers will get the price cut from this month.

Microsoft claims the new plans, based on customer feedback, will make things simpler, although some customers may be unable to physically shift to a new plan on 1 October as the system will take time to apply in full, the vendor says.

Microsoft is running a 15-minute webinar on Office 365 next Tuesday morning US time.