Microsoft Preps Three Office 365 Versions for SMBs

Microsoft (MSFT) is readying three versions of its subscription-based Office 365 cloud service tailored for new small- and medium-sized business (SMB) customers for a planned Oct. 1 release date.

The new Office 365 SMB portfolio, aimed at businesses with between one and 250 employees, will include:

Microsoft disclosed its Office 365 plans in a blog post earlier this week. The company said it intends to phase out its current Office 365 offerings—namely, Small Business, Small Business Premium and Midsize Business—over time in favor of the new lineup. No changes are being made to the current Enterprise plans.

The new Office 365 Business plan will be priced at $8.25 per month per user while the Business Essentials module, which now supports Yammer and Active Directory, is listed at $5 per month per user and the seat limit has been bumped up to 300. The Business Premium version will be priced at $12.50 per user per month.

Microsoft isn’t pressing existing customers to upgrade to the new plans immediately when they’re available. Instead, the vendor has elected to offer some of the features and pricing of the new plans to existing Office 365 SMB customers beginning Oct. 1 by upping the seat cap limits for existing Small Business and Small Business Premium customers to 300 from 25 and lowering pricing for Midsize Business customers to $12.50 per user per month. Existing customers will get the new prices the next time they renew, starting Aug. 1.

“Most customers will have the ability to opt-in and move to the new plans after they launch,” Microsoft wrote in an Office blog post. “However, we recommend that most customers should simply continue using their current plans as they do today and move to the similar new plan at their first renewal after October 1, 2015. With the matching updates for our existing plans, only a small number of customers with very specific needs would realize value from moving plans before October 1, 2015.”

The vendor said it will provide more details on the Office 365 changes at its Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington D.C., July 14-17.