Forum Discussion
M365 Business and Conditional Access
MicrosoftDavid,
Remember that there's also a price difference between O365 BP & M365B, so you are already paying extra for those AAD P1 features you're getting with M365. So the total price between your two scenarios is different.
I agree that conditional access addresses a big need in SMBs, who are more likely to be at risk than Enterprise, for various reasons. Your feedback is valuable (and I don't just roll that out as a flippant term) for us to pass on to the product team.
I'm going to throw in a controversial question here: would you accept a price increase in the M365 Business licenses if it also included conditional access and other P1 features? Note: I am not foretelling anything here, I'm just curious. I don't work for that product team and I don't get to make those kinds of decisions :)
-Sonia
MicrosoftHi Sonia,
Putting my former business owner hat on...I've owned a couple SMBs in the past. For my last company, we used O365 E5 for every employee (all 6 of us) and I didn't have a problem with the price. My business partner would grumble a bit because he was always looking to minimize recurring spending...but it was easy for me to demonstrate the value because we were using the primary workloads extensively.
I agree O365 BP & M365B are different. The real issue at hand is that Microsoft is telling customers that M365B is the only SKU needed for SMB productivity and security. That's almost true because most of EMS E3 is packaged in there....except for a few AAD P1 features. But the security benefits are diminished substantially because CA is excluded from M365B. So, it's not just about missing CA as a single feature. Parts of MFA and Intune are not going to work as designed without the ability to create some key CA policies and I worry more about credential theft, ransomware, etc without CA. Ideally, these policies would be created automatically for M365B customers so they don't need to engage with an identity expert to get an appropriate baseline policy in place for the SKU they bought (Similarly to how the device policies are created in the configuration wizard...that's really nice)
I'm not concerned so much about the price as long as the product I'm buying meets my business requirements. If a product or service I'm evaluating is overpriced, and a competitor has a better offer...then I'm going to shop around. In this case, I think M365B has excellent value and I wouldn't be adverse to a reasonable price change. I'm not sure CA alone justifies it...but I'm not close enough to the product to really make an informed decision. If I were still a business owner and I was facing a modest increase, I don't think I'd balk at it.
What I'm really advocating for here is clarity. I believe Microsoft intends M365B to be the premium SKU for customers with less than 300 seats and does not intend to push or require mainstream customers to buy add-ons for productivity and security. If that is the case, CA needs to be included regardless if it increases the price or not. If I'm wrong and the recommended approach is to require customers who want full productivity and security to buy M365B + AAD P1 then please update the marketing accordingly so partners can get ahead of this and position the two SKUs correctly.
- SoniaCuff
David Bjurman-Birr Can you please talk with every other SMB owner? :)
Appreciate your great feedback - this has some Microsoft eyes on it.
-Sonia
Ashanka IddyaHi All,
As one of the Product Architects of Microsoft 365 Business, I want to chime in and assure everyone that we are actively reviewing all feedback. So please continue to give us feedback, especially focusing on what scenarios you would need Conditional Access for from an SMB perspective. Customer examples will help greatly in building the case
Thanks!
Ashanka
Ashanka Iddya Thank you .. this is proof that Microsoft listens to feedback for sure:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-365-Business-Blog/Conditional-Access-is-now-part-of-Microsoft-365-Business/ba-p/684063Finally we can have awesome security for SMB customers as well!!
Agree with many of the points. My thoughts:
For SMBs , we need to focus on simplicity . So we have :
1. Business Premium as a Premium Productivity Offering
2. M 365 Business as a Premium Productivity plus Security Offering
As a Security Offering , it should be a No Compromise SKU. So it should have everything which a SMB would essentially need to address Security needs . I would look at a complete EMS E3 bundle to be included . It makes sense to tell Customer that he will get :
O 365 Business Premium plus Complete EMS E3 plus Windows 10 Upgrade
