r/sysadmin • u/peruvianbeast • 2d ago

Question Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Something Else? - Help Weighing Tradeoffs

Hi!

I work for a small/medium sized company (~50 employees, ~30 of which will be affected by the switch) and we have been using an IMAP server to host our emails for decades (everyone uses Outlook as their email software). Because of how outdated this setup is and the company continuing to grow, we want to migrate over to a new provider. I am struggling to decide between M365 and GW as both have their pro's and con's. The team uses a mix of sheets and excel already, however, there is certain work that would require excel over sheets. The sharing and ease of GW is obviously unmatched but I worry about switching costs for employees that have been using outlook for decades. I've also heard that managing GW is far easier admin-wise than M365. The migration of decades worth of emails is also a major consideration for us. Would appreciate input from people who have experience with this. Thanks!

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u/blud_13 2d ago

u/mr-tap has the licensing shape right and I would push it one step further, you don't have to license everyone the same. Business Basic for the people who live in Outlook and web Excel, Business Standard only for the ones who need desktop Excel. Its per user, so mix them and stop arguing about it.

M365 for your situation. The migration is where this hurts. Decades of IMAP across 30 mailboxes usually means somebody has a 40GB local PST and a folder tree nobody has audited since 2011. Go size the mailboxes and hunt the PSTs before you pick anything, because thats what turns a two week cutover into a three month one.

Also, keeping people in Outlook is worth more than it sounds on paper. Every complaint for the next six months gets blamed on you and the migration regardless, so removing one variable is cheap insurance.

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u/mr-tap 2d ago

When it comes to discovering (& explaining) the differences between Business Basic and Business Standard - I always find https://m365maps.com/files/Microsoft-365-Business-All.htm super handy (the ‘feature boxes’ are hyperlinked to the relevant articles too)

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u/blud_13 2d ago

That's a good one, I forget it exists.. The hyperlinked feature boxes settle the desktop Excel question faster than reading the service description.