Office 365 from the cloud: advantages, opportunities & risks for companies

The advance of Office 365 from the cloud can hardly be stopped - following the current trend towards software services from the cloud. There are several good reasons for this: Small to medium-sized companies in particular benefit from included and ongoing upgrades. This means they always have the latest version of the software. There is no need to operate your own server infrastructure for these applications, which means a noticeable reduction in costs and a minimized risk of failure, since this runs via an encrypted connection in the data center, where appropriate security devices should ensure continuous operation. IT configuration and maintenance are reduced to practically zero. The latest security updates are always installed. Of course, the savings potential is enormous. In addition to these tangible business advantages, there are other positive criteria that can be directly experienced in the user experience. This means that documents stored in the cloud are also available and editable on the go. There are also new features such as data loss prevention, office groups, intelligent search and help, and much more, which make work easier for the user.

But in addition to these tangible advantages, Office 365 from the cloud also has a few problems. Some of them are inextricably linked to the product and the whole concept. The company's IT team no longer has any control over failures, cannot eliminate them independently and may not be able to tell the supervisor when the service will be active again. An unstable Internet connection also leads to problems: where the classic Office installed on the client previously simply worked, the user experience can suffer or there is a risk of a complete temporary failure.

In addition, Office 365 does not back up deleted emails for longer than 30 days, which is outside the guidelines of many companies. This requires third-party backup software. Much more serious are the considerations of compliance with the legislation. E-mail archiving only works as long as you keep the account active or pay for the user. Since e-mails should be kept for a few years for legal reasons, you have to pay for more and more accounts - provided you don't have a backup from a third-party provider. This can be particularly serious for companies with high staff turnover.

If you take a broader perspective on the topic, you should plan carefully before switching to Office 365 and calculate the conversion costs in advance. The introduction can be very time-consuming - for example due to the necessary data migration. In addition, you should find out exactly which infrastructures and applications can be reduced. Otherwise there may be expensive surprises. Since Office 365 applications are also highly standardized, there are additional expenses for customization, such as for company standards, accessibility or simply additional functions. Not to be forgotten here are the costs for an appropriately secured Internet line and network infrastructure, which is actually absolutely necessary for operating the software in the cloud.

Possible supplementary or (partially replacing) products can also be Nextcloud, which enables a cloud on the company's own server.