Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium upgrade path

We have been talking about upgrade path for Microsoft Office 365 Business and  Office 365 Business Essentials.

Today, we going to discuss about upgrade path for Office 365 Business Premium. 

Office 365 Business Premium is a plan for combination of both Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Essentials. This mean you want both Microsoft Office and Email Outlook Exchange.

Of course, you get 1TB of One Drive for Business per user for backup and Disaster Recovery, which is effectively unlimited storage for backup and sync with your hardware for Disaster Recovery. 

If your company want Microsoft Access, or Self Services Business Intelligence like Powerpivot etc, or Hybrid deployment. Then, your company can upgrade to Office 365 Enterprise E3 Plan

Alternatively, your company can add other standalone online plan. Like Microsoft Project Online, Visio Online or Dynamics CRM Online etc.


Exchange Online Plan 1



What if you intend to subscribed for or currently using Exchange Online Plan 1?

By adding additional USD1 per user per month. You can upgrade to Office 365 Business Premium, which you have SharePoint Online, Lync online, Yammer and you have 1TB of One Drive for Business per user

Or if your company want to included Microsoft Office. Then, your company can upgrade to Office 365 Business premium. Then your company can add stanalone plan like Microsoft Project Online, Visio Online and Dynamics CRM online.

A comparison of all Office 365 plan with Exchange Online Plan 1 and Plan 2 as follow : 

Microsoft Office 365 Business Essentials upgrade path

Our previous blog post discuss about Microsoft detach Office and email Exchange online from Office 365 Plan. Now customer can choose Office only, Email only or Cloud ( both ).

If your company choice is Outlook Email Exchange Server online, One of the most popular product of Microsoft, other than it Microsoft Office product. 

Then your choice should be Microsoft Office 365 Business Essentials. Of course, there is  standalone Exchange Online Plan 1 and Plan 2.

However, with Office 365 Business Essentials. You get Sharepoint Online, Lync online, Yammer, in addition to Email Exchange Online.

Previously, small and Medium enterprise ( SME ) can buy Small Business Server that included Exchange Server, Sharepoint Server,and Lync Server in a box with affordable price.

Now, Microsoft Small Business Server no longer in the market. SME have to order Windows Server 2012 Essentials but doesn't included Exchange Server at all. For that functionality, you're expected to subscribe to Office 365 Business Essentials in addition to Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

The advantage is that you get 50GB inbox per user. Majority of Exchange Server or within Small Business Server. Each user get 50MB inbox per user that constantly need to delete archieve to keep your email with name@yourcompany.com active.

With 50GB inbox, it seem each user have unlimited storage.

Each user also get 1TB of One Drive for Business, like Office 365 Business.

Staff can book their meeting room with Shared Calender now

What is the upgrade path than?


If you want to keep your company On premises Exchange Server for hybrid deployment as not confident on pure cloud services. You can upgrade to Office 365 Enterprise E1, then data still can keep on your server and on the cloud.


If you want to combine Office 365 Business Essentials together with Office 365 Business to include Microsoft Office like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, etc. Then your company can upgrade to Office 365 Buisness Premium.

Microsoft Office 365 Business upgrade path

Our previous blog post discuss about Microsoft detach Office and email Exchange online from Office 365 Plan. Now customer can choose Office only, Email only or Cloud ( both ).

What if your company need Office only but do not required email or Exchange online at the moment. Then, your company should subscripted to Office 365 Business, which comprises Office desktop apps only like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Publisher but excluding Microsoft Access.

With Microsoft office 365 instead of on Premises license like Office 2013. Now your company can use Office mobile apps on tablet and smartphone up to 5 devices.

In addition to that, your company get 1TB of cloud storage of One Drive for Business. 1TB effective unlimited storage. This can be configure to automatic backup and sync and can be a low cost Disaster Recovery plan in the event you lost any hardware like laptop, tablet or smartphone. Hardware can be replace easily but not data.

But, what is the upgrade plan available.






If your company want Microsoft Access, then your company can choose Office 365 ProPlus, this packages include Self Services Business Intelligence like PowerPivot etc, Shared computer activation ( RDS ). This packages also support On premises server setup like if your company already have On-premises Exchange Server, SharePoint Server or Lync Server and if your company want to keep those server. 

Rarely other open source spreadsheet have the ability of PowerPivot which can support Excel Pulgin (xll) and PowerPivot for Self Services Business Intelligence.

Alternatively, when your company want to expand your cloud operation  to include Email and Calendering, Exchange Online with email like name@yourcompany.com. Your company can upgrade to Office 365 Business premium later. This packages include Online Meeting, Messenger Sharepoint Online and Yammer.



If your company upgrade to full cloud packages to include Email and Calendering.  Then your expectation to your ICT Consultant change as follow : 

How to choose new Microsoft Office 365 plan

Microsoft has launch new Office 365 plan since October 2014.


Old plan comprises Office 365 Small Business, Office 365 Midsize Business and  Office 365 Enterprise E3.


 Customer complaint it is expensive and some might only need Office like Word, Excel, Powerpoint but do not required email or exchange online as it is cheaper they get their company email via a hosting company which host their website and email.





Some who want to replaced their old Exchange server but might not required to change their Microsoft Office.

Thus, Microsoft have separate Office and email under two different plan.

Now, customer can choose either Microsoft Office like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc or email and Calendering or both.


From October 2014. customer can choose whether they want either Office only, or email only ( name @yourcompany.com ) or move to the cloud ( both Office and email ) as follow :









Each requirement have 2 plan for core needs and advanced needs


1) If you want Office only, there is Office 365 Business or Office 365 ProPlus.


2) If you want  email only, there is Office 365 Business Essentials and Office 365 Enterprise E1


3) If you want to move all to cloud, there is Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Enterprise E3

Compare all the Office 365 plan and between Exchange online Plan 1 and Plan 2 as follow :

Next : we will analyse what is the upgrade path for each plan.