Microsoft Announces New Enterprise Plan for Office 365

In a post on the Microsoft Office Blog on 13 July, corporate vice president for Microsoft Office John Case announced the plan to introduce a new Office 365 Enterprise Suite. The new Office suite will be called E5, and will be available sometime before the end of 2015.

 The new E5 suite will replace the current E4 suite as the highest-end product in the Office 365 line, with the most features and services. Case’s post summarizes the new features, which include, “Skype for Business services for real-time communication such as Cloud PBX and PSTN Conferencing, new analytics features like Power BI Pro and Delve Organizational Analytics, and new advanced security features such as eDiscovery, Customer Lockbox, Data Loss Protection (DLP) and Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).”

 With this new suite, Microsoft hopes to offer a product that will increase the capabilities of its customers to collaborate and increase productivity. There are currently six Business and Enterprise Office 365 suites available, which vary in capability and cost. No pricing or specific date of release for Office 365 E5 is available yet, but is expected within the calendar year.