Some of the larger SMB organisations are starting to look at Microsoft 365 E3 as an option over Business Premium. For my article this month I thought I would look at why an organisation would want E3 over Business Premium (BP), and some reasons why not.

 

Both E3 and BP offer a wide range of productivity and collaboration tools, Microsoft 365 E3 provides additional features that might be more beneficial for larger organisations or those with more complex needs.

 

  1. Larger Mailboxes and more OneDrive Storage: E3 includes larger mailbox sizes (100GB) than BP (50GB). E3 also has unlimited OneDrive Storage versus 1TB for BP.
  2. Exchange Online Archiving and Litigation Hold : E3 includes EOL Plan 2 whereas BP only includes Plan 1. Plan 2 includes EOL Online Archiving, and In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold as well as Purview Data Loss Prevention.
  3. Advanced Analytics: Microsoft 365 E3 includes Power BI Pro, which allows organisations to analyse their data and gain insights to make informed business decisions. Power BI Pro | Microsoft Power Platform. It also includes Power Automate Attended Desktop Flows
  4. Windows Virtualisation Rights: E3 includes Windows Virtualisation rights. The right to run your software on an Authorised Outsourcers’ Server (not a Listed Provider i.e. AWS, GCP, Azure or Alibaba). Each eligible Windows 11 licensed user is entitled to access up to four virtual machines.
  5. Defender for Endpoint Plans : BP includes Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 whereas E3 only includes Plan 1. Plan 2 additionally includes:
    • Endpoint detection and response
    • Automated investigation and remediation
    • Threat and vulnerability management
    • Threat intelligence (threat analytics)
    • Sandbox (deep analysis)
    • Microsoft Threat Experts
  1. Defender for Office : BP includes Defender for Office Plan 1 which includes Anti-Phishing, Safe Attachments and Safe Links Microsoft Defender for Office 365 service description - Service Descriptions | Microsoft Learn

The price difference between E3 and BP isn’t huge, so if your end user needs advanced Email capabilities like litigation hold or PowerBI Pro then E3 is definitely worth looking into, but it’s also worth knowing what they lose by upgrading as well.