Microsoft bakes Skype, analytics, more into single Office 365 SKU

Microsoft is cramming telephony, security and analytics into a new Office 365 bundle – baking in features typically offered separately or by third-party vendors and IT service providers.

The E5 Office 365 Enterprise Suite will be available "before the end of this calendar year", said John Case, corporate vice president of Office Marketing at Microsoft, during a keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference in Orlando. 

As well as Office 365, E5 will package Skype for Business services such as Cloud PBX and PSTN Conferencing, Power BI Pro, Delve Organisational Analytics, as well as "new advanced security features such as eDiscovery, Customer Lockbox, data loss protection (DLP) and safe attachments", some of which was announced at RSA Conference 2015.

E5 pricing was not revealed, though considering the volume of tools packaged up, assume it won't be cheap.

Microsoft is also shutting down the E4 bundle. "E4 is very on prem-oriented so [E5] is not really replacing but we will work hard to provide pathways for customers to go from E4 to E5," Tanuj Bansal, senior director, Office 365 channels, told CRN.

Previously, partners would have been required to resell separate SKUs in order to provide customers with licences for Office 365 and Skype for Business.

But Bansal said the benefits went beyond a bundle – many of the features are still only in preview, so E5 will be the first chance for customers to try them out.

The depth of product crammed into the E5 bundle will create competition with everyone from communications vendors such as Cisco and end-point security firms, to resellers providing hosted telephony.

Chuong Mai-Viet, managing director of Microsoft partner Bluesource Australia, told CRN: "I think the E5 bundle is something that clients have been screaming out for. It is something that will absolutely have success in the market.

"Resellers get scared because they think it takes away from them – they might sell services around telephony and partner with the likes of AAPT and worry about losing a revenue stream. But it is about enabling our clients. Technology moves on and there is always a better way of doing things," said Mai-Viet.

Pieter Kolkert, chief executive of Tasmania-based partner Intuit, told CRN he was impressed. "It follows Microsoft's tradition of bundling a whole bunch of different SKUs into one. One issue for Microsoft historically is that there are a million different part numbers. People want it simplified. It is like a licence agreement; it just simplifies things."

Philip Goldie, Microsoft director of partner business & development, compared E5 to Enterprise Mobility Suite, where Microsoft took three popular SKUs – mobile device management, identity services with Azure directory and digital right management – and rolled them into one.

In his keynote, John Case announced three more updates around Office 365, including an expansion of its Cloud Solution Provider program to encompass Azure, Enterprise Mobility Suite and CRM Online; new incentives to drive active usage, including up to 20 percent rebate for Azure consumption; and the new Azure Certified for the Hybrid Cloud competency.

Steven Kiernan is a guest of Microsoft at the Worldwide Partner Conference.