Office 365 Exchange Licensing Answers
There are several bundling options for Office 365 which include Exchange Online functionality. Additionally, there are stand alone plans for buying Exchange Online specific features only. All of these options reference one of three sets of Exchange Online Plan Types: Exchange Online Kiosk, Exchange Online (Plan 1), and Exchange Online (Plan 2).
The Chart below shows which bundles associate to which Exchange Online plans:
|
Office 365 |
Office 365 (Plan E1) |
Office 365 (Plan E2) |
Office 365 (Plan E3) |
Office 365 (Plan E4) |
|
Exchange Online Kiosk License |
Exchange Online (Plan 1) |
Exchange Online (Plan 1) |
Exchange Online (Plan 2) |
Exchange Online (Plan 2) |
In the next chart you’ll find each of the three Office 365 Exchange Licensing plans compared in terms of major feature sets and options. It is worth noting that both the Exchange Online (Plan 1) and Exchange Online (Plan 2) sets can be purchased as standalone SQUs. However, if you have buying any other Office 365 products, it will make more sense to go with a bundled plan.
Exchange Online Service for Entreprises
|
Feature |
Exchange Online Kiosk |
Exchange Online (Plan 1) |
Exchange Online (Plan 2) |
|
Mailbox size |
500 megabytes (MB) |
25 gigabytes (GB)* |
Unlimited** |
|
Outlook Web App (regular and light versions) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
POP |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
IMAP |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Outlook Anywhere (MAPI) |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync? |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Exchange Web Services |
No*** |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Inbox rules |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Delegate access |
No (cannot access other users? mailboxes, shared mailboxes, or resource mailboxes) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Instant messaging interoperability in OWA |
No |
Yes (requires Lync Online or Microsoft Lync Server 2010) |
Yes (requires Lync Online or Microsoft Lync Server 2010) |
|
SMS notifications |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Custom retention policies |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Multi-mailbox search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Personal archive |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Voicemail |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Legal hold |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
*25 GB of storage apportioned across the user?s primary mailbox and personal archive. |
|
**25 GB of storage in the user?s primary mailbox, plus unlimited storage in the user?s personal archive. |
|
***Direct access to Kiosk user mailboxes via Exchange Web Services is not permitted. However, line of business applications can use Exchange Web Services impersonation to access Kiosk user mailboxes. |
The last question which may be lingering pertains to the Small Business P1 Plan. This Office 365 Exchange Online Licensing plan isn’t mentioned above because is dynamically excluded from the Enterprise Licensing options. If you go to the Microsoft Office 365 website to signup and buy, their P1 plan marketing fails to mention a vital fact: That the Exchange Online product you get is vastly inferior in functionality and security access to the Enterprise options. In fact, this problem caused me some big headaches when we got our first few clients on Office 365, then had to immediately unsubscribe all our P1 licenses because of how handcuffed they are.
As a general rule, any company with over 5 employees, or any company migrating from an existing server should be very cautious before picking the P1 plan licensing. Especially due to the fact that there is currently no migration option from P1 to E1-4, meaning once you go down that route, you are relatively locked in.
The blog I wrote back in July dives into more details on this subject: Office 365 Blacklist Migration Issues
More questions about Pricing? Call: 1-855-IT-BOOST
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