Recently I was speaking with a few individuals in the community and it was oddly interesting to hear that there seemed to be some misconceptions about Microsoft 365 and what exactly it is comprised of… is it the Operating System, or is it Office 365, or is it something else.
Literally. Eye opening. So eye opening that I feel the urge to drink coffee as I scribe this. Hold on while I go get another cuppa coffee.
Pertaining to what Microsoft 365 is and isn’t… it shouldn’t be too difficult for an individual that works in the IT field to keep up to date by reading all documentation, updates, tweets, articles, etc. in their field – right? Perhaps we need to assess how much time we’re reading as opposed to doing. Seriously though I read a lot during the day… almost as much as Ciphertxt and his trusty bot as they process feeds of information at all times of the day and night while listening to industry podcasts to stay ahead of the rest of us. Yes, even I feel somewhat overwhelmed.
If you’re feeling like there’s too much information to consume and you do want to know more about the platform that you’re working with and the new technological changes that are coming forth… I’d highly encourage you to read the Service Description for Microsoft 365 on a regular basis – perhaps once a month.
The Service Description is sitting in plain site with a URL that’s easy to remember – http://www.office365sd.com. Be advised that it this document link does redirect you to a docs.microsoft.com site.
In addition to the Office 365 Service Description, it’s not a bad idea to follow the conversations and articles being released over at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/. This is where Microsoft works to digitally meet the community. Many new features or changes are socialized through with supporting documentation back at the Microsoft Doc’s site.
Also, if you’re looking for something that you can download, maybe the Microsoft Cloud IT Podcast is for you to able to consume information in byte size chunks – https://www.msclouditpropodcast.com/
Back to the subject at hand and dispelling misconceptions of what Microsoft 365 actually consists of? It’s the overarching brand for all Microsoft Collaboration products and in some sense security and OS. This covers home, personal, business, enterprise, education, and government product lines.
For Enterprise level users, Microsoft 365 includes Windows 10, Microsoft (Office) 365, and EMS.
For Business, Home, and Personal users, it means rebranding of the services but not necessarily inclusion of the OS or EMS – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/30/new-microsoft-365-offerings-small-and-medium-sized-businesses/
What’s fascinating to me though is when individuals get wrapped around the axle differentiating the workloads of Enterprise Microsoft 365 and what was more commonly referred to up until recently as Office 365. Why? Mostly due to individuals referring to Office 365 as Microsoft 365 without realizing that they were now including the OS and EMS components into the discussion. Now that they’re all bundled together I foresee many individuals that previously did not work much with EMS, InTune, or the OS side of things getting involved and engaged (perhaps just the IT Pros) in developing solutions that encompass mobility in more ways than just having apps on a device to access their data (OneDrive, Office, etc.)
It’s an exciting new world – dispell the misconceptions of Microsoft 365 by picking up the Service Description and a couple of pots of coffee and get cranking on learning all of the things… and also start working to learn some new things today.
The Tech Blog of Dan Usher 