I was chatting with a long-term customer of ours the other day.\u00a0 They have been using a \u201ccheap\u201d hosted email service (POP\/IMAP) from their web site hoster for years.\u00a0 The cost of providing email services to their 150 or\u00a0so users has been ridiculously low (like tens of dollars per month) but, as you might expect, they have been growing less satisfied over the years.\u00a0 They are now at the point where company ownership is allowing the techies to look into Office 365.<\/p>\n
And right up front we have hit a hurdle \u2026 they are looking at Office 365 Business Essentials as the least expensive way for them to get into the Cloud and they are balking at the CAD $5.10\/mth\/user cost as they are comparing that to the almost no monthly cost of their current config.<\/p>\n
Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!\u00a0 That is truly comparing apples to oranges or even apples to giraffes!\u00a0 There is no comparison<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n Let me explain (and forgive me if you read my banging on about this in past posts) \u2026<\/p>\n Their current config with their web hoster gives them their website and POP\/IMAP email, that’s the sum total.<\/p>\n The Office 365 Business Essentials subscription will give them the following:<\/p>\n That’s one hell of a LOT more functionality than just POP\/IMAP email and a public website!\u00a0 Email might be the driver to get many organizations on to Office 365 but it is a serious disservice to ignore the rest of the Office 365 package.<\/p>\n The value of Office 365 truly comes from the sum of its parts and NOT just from email.\u00a0 So evaluating the cost of Office 365 against another \u201cjust email\u201d provider is not a proper or fair comparison.\u00a0 In fact, it is not a comparison at all as it is much to flawed to be relevant.<\/p>\n When I pointed out all of this to my customer there was an immediate uptick in interest as, for whatever reason, they were unaware that all of the components mentioned above were part of the subscription.\u00a0 The value statement for them immediately changed as did the discussion.\u00a0 Now the discussion is all about how soon they can get all of their users up and running on 365!<\/p>\n So, remember, you have to compare \u201clike with like\u201d to make a valid comparison.\u00a0 Don’t make the mistake of comparing apples with giraffes in your evaluation of Office 365 vs alternatives.\u00a0 You’ll be doing yourself a serious disservice if you do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n