Office 365? Great Idea, but Archiving… (1)

Office 365 is sweeping US businesses to the cloud, but there are plenty who are concerned about standard archiving features.

Just a casual glance at the graph above reveals a lack of confidence in the current set of features and specifications provided by Microsoft. Only 19% of survey respondents reported full satisfaction. The rest are concerned their needs might not be met.

This article will delve into what all these businesspeople want in an email archiving solution, but cannot have without integrating a 3rd party archiving solution.

Concern #1 Internet Connectivity a Must (because Cloud)

This one is particularly relevant for businesses that are migrating from an on-premise setup. The cloud-based Office 365 stores your email cache in the cloud without copying it to your local Outlook client. While this is not an issue when in the office, travelers will be unable to access their archived messages from a mobile device or laptop wherever they cannot access the Internet. Users might also notice a little lag time when they access larger messages because these must be copied from the cloud.

Concern #2 – Data Limits: How much is not enough?

You might have heard claims of “unlimited storage” for Office 365, but here’s the full story. There is a short list of subscription plans that limit total mailbox (user mail + archive) to 50 Gigs total.

•      Office 365 Government E1
•      Office 365 Educational E1
•      Office 365 Enterprise E1
•      Office 365 Business Premium
•      Office 365 Business Essentials

All other plans offer unlimited archiving for each mailbox, with a 50-Gig limit on user mail. Once any of these limits is reached, you are faced with the decision to delete messages or buy extra storage capacity.

As grand as 50 Gigs sounded in 2010, 2015 is a different story. Emails can carry substantial files – and necessarily so for some users. So the insecurity about Office 365’s standard abilities make sense.

But just to be clear, we are not badmouthing Office 365. There are plenty of reasons why so many companies are switching. We are writing about the potential problems of switching over not to change your mind, but rather to help you think through these issues proactively, and to take appropriate steps to keep your company covered from all the angles.

Come back next week for more Office 365 archiving analysis.