Sanity check on hosted Exchange/365 costs
Sanity check on hosted Exchange/365 costs
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Rabbo

Original Poster:

527 posts

231 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
We currently have 13 workstations (mainly W10 laptops) and an on-site file server. Email is via a hosted Exchange server and we also have Office 365 subscriptions. For the server licences and maintenance, we pay £120/month. The workstation licences and maintenance are £25/month each. Total cost £445/month.

We are reasonably happy with the service, however, support is a bit hit-and-miss and I'm wondering if what we are paying for is reasonable value?

randlemarcus

13,646 posts

261 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
If you have O365 subscriptions, why are you paying for hosted Exchange? Shovel the mailboxes up to Microsoft, ditch that cost. Shovel the files up to OneDrive/SharePoint and ditch the File Server.

You could reduce costs, but you would need to look at why things are what they are first.

Rabbo

Original Poster:

527 posts

231 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
randlemarcus said:
If you have O365 subscriptions, why are you paying for hosted Exchange? Shovel the mailboxes up to Microsoft, ditch that cost. Shovel the files up to OneDrive/SharePoint and ditch the File Server.

You could reduce costs, but you would need to look at why things are what they are first.
We prefer to have an on-site file server for reasons including reliability of our internet connection. I'm not sure why we're paying for hosted exchange (legacy from before my time no doubt).

KevinCamaroSS

13,848 posts

310 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
How much a month? According to the Microsoft website a top-end O365 licence to include email is £9.40/month/user. Where does your £25/month come from?

sjg

7,682 posts

295 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
Rabbo said:
We prefer to have an on-site file server for reasons including reliability of our internet connection. I'm not sure why we're paying for hosted exchange (legacy from before my time no doubt).
End users can sync stuff from SharePoint using OneDrive for Business. So unless they need vast amounts of data at their fingertips even when the internet is down, it need not be a big problem.

geeks

11,767 posts

169 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
Rabbo said:
We currently have 13 workstations (mainly W10 laptops) and an on-site file server. Email is via a hosted Exchange server and we also have Office 365 subscriptions. For the server licences and maintenance, we pay £120/month. The workstation licences and maintenance are £25/month each. Total cost £445/month.

We are reasonably happy with the service, however, support is a bit hit-and-miss and I'm wondering if what we are paying for is reasonable value?
Is the Email and O365 bundled into the same licence? Do you install Office onto the machines? (Assuming E3 here) that's £17.60 p/m

Add servicing/maintenance into the machines at £7.40 PM

What are the server costs for?

Not saying any of the above is correct just trying to get an understanding of the break down/costs involved.

KevinCamaroSS said:
How much a month? According to the Microsoft website a top-end O365 licence to include email is £9.40/month/user. Where does your £25/month come from?
True but its Small Business with storage limits etc. Not saying it isn't suitable but its possible.


OP your IT partner should be able to provide a breakdown of costs, might be worth getting them to supply this/go over it with you!

Bikerjon

2,211 posts

191 months

Friday 1st December 2017
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How bad is the internet connection? Is it just slow or does it drop completely? Probably worth seeing if that can be improved/stabilised as a first step and if so then you would be able to get everything hosted on 365 with the obvious cost benefits.

bitchstewie

68,112 posts

240 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
Check exactly what you're paying for.

You can get Office/Windows plan pricing from the Microsoft website but as you'll see there are quite a lot of options plus using the word "maintenance" suggests you're paying specifically for some kind of support over and beyond the subscription as with 365 this includes updates/support anyway.

andyb28

1,165 posts

148 months

Friday 1st December 2017
quotequote all
Rabbo said:
We currently have 13 workstations (mainly W10 laptops) and an on-site file server. Email is via a hosted Exchange server and we also have Office 365 subscriptions. For the server licences and maintenance, we pay £120/month. The workstation licences and maintenance are £25/month each. Total cost £445/month.

We are reasonably happy with the service, however, support is a bit hit-and-miss and I'm wondering if what we are paying for is reasonable value?
Rabbo, is that on site, or remote support?

Forget all the licence stuff for a minute, everyone jumped on that as the prices are obviously public.
For what you have and depending on the level of support they are offering, in terms of its total price, it doesn't seem that bad to me.

Where is your Exchange server hosted? Perhaps there are additional costs there?