Microsoft 365 Business Hits Public Preview
    Microsoft's net new licensing package for small businesses, called  Microsoft 365 Business, is now in public preview.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled  Microsoft 365 last month at the Microsoft Inspire partner conference in  Washington, D.C., as a combination of key parts of Office 365, Windows 10 and  Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS). 
"Microsoft 365 Business is the coming together of all  of these products in a very compelling offer and package for every small  business, every medium-sized business to have the same tools, the same  sophistication that any large business has," Nadella said during his  Inspire keynote.
An enterprise version, Microsoft 365 Enterprise, is an  evolution of Secure Productive Enterprise, which was already available in E3  and E5 SKUs, and is supposed to be generally available (GA) this quarter.
As a completely new bundle, Microsoft 365  Business is only entering the public preview stage on Wednesday. Microsoft  currently says a fully supported version will be available by the end of the  year.
For now, the preview is free, although Microsoft recommends that  customers hire a partner to deploy the solution. At GA, Microsoft 365 Business  will cost $20 per user, compared to the $12.50 per user charge for Office 365  Business Premium. Like Office 365 Business Premium, Microsoft 365 Business  includes Microsoft Office, 1TB of file storage, a 50GB mailbox, online  meetings, Microsoft Teams, and business applications including Outlook Customer  Manager, Bookings and MileIQ.
The $7.50/user/month premium for the release version of  Microsoft 365 Business will get organizations Windows 10 Pro upgrade rights for  users with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, as well as Windows Defender and other  security features and device management features, such as a single console to  manage user and device settings, self-service PC deployment, and automatic deployment  of Office apps to Windows 10 PCs.
Organizations that are currently paying for Office 365 will  need to continue to pay the subscription while using the public preview,  Microsoft said in a FAQ.
Microsoft 365 Business is meant for organizations with no  full-time IT staff, no Active Directory domain controllers and fewer than 300  users. The FAQ states that customers using on-premises Active Directory "must  switch to cloud identity and management as part of their deployment."
 
	Posted by Scott Bekker on August 02, 2017