Microsoft introduces new Office 365 E5 Plan (Retires E4)

Microsoft introduced a new Office 365 Plan today called E5 starting at $429 per user per year or $35 per month. Office 365 is Microsoft’s subscription service for Microsoft Office consisting of apps, servers and cloud storage. The new plan will succeed the previous E4 Plan, which will be phased out by June 2016. Announced at the company’s Convergence EMEA conference, customers can sign up for the new plan starting December 1st. The E5 plan includes some interesting new features.

Office 365 E5 Plan Features

• Advanced eDiscovery—Integrates Equivio machine learning, predictive coding and text analytics capabilities, to reduce the costs and challenges that come along with sorting through large quantities of data for eDiscovery purposes.
• Delve Analytics—Empowers individuals through rich dashboards that provide insights on time and relationships, with the goal of helping individuals get time back and spend it efficiently.
• Power BI—A business analytics service that enables information workers to visualize and analyze data with greater speed, efficiency, and understanding through live data dashboards, interactive reports, and compelling visualizations.
• Cloud PBX allows companies to eliminate separate PBX systems and transition to the cloud with Office 365 as the central location to manage users for communication

E3 gains two new exclusives Data Loss Prevention and Encryption. Skype for Business adds PSTN support an E5 feature that makes it possible to dial into a meeting from a traditional phone in addition to the current ability to join a meeting with a single click on your PC or mobile device. E3 and E1 users should note this is a paid add-on with calling cost at $24 per user per month. Domestic and international calling adds $12 while E1 and E3, the international and domestic calling plan is $32 extra.

Office 365 E5 also includes features available in E3 such as Office Online, Exchange Online and access to desktop suite Office 365 Pro Plus. Microsoft’s other Office 365 plans, E1, and E3 will still be available at current pricing, but adds new features such as Work Management and Meeting Broadcast, which can broadcast a meeting over the Internet to 10,000 people from within a web browser.

Microsoft will provide an in-depth look at its Modern Workplace webcast tomorrow, December 1, at 8:00 a.m. PST / 4:00 p.m. GMT. You can register for it here.