Best solutions for small business?

[Modena]

Good morning everybody,
I'm a desktop support technician at a fairly small company, and as of recently the only "IT" person in the company. My boss has tasked me with giving options on and upgrading our current environment. Any information or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So our current environment consists of three main office locations, and 16 houses. Total user count is a little over 100. We have two separate SBS 2011 servers, one in main office location A, and another in main office location B. Main office location C does not have a server, they remote desktop or VPN to work, as do all the houses. Also each of the SBS 2011 servers are entirely separate and use different email domains.

Now the servers are separate because we are technically two companies working under one umbrella. So the users need to retain their @companyname email addresses.
The problems lie when users need to share information and network resources between companies/locations.

My solution/suggestion so far has been to switch us all too office 365 business and to do away with our aging servers. This gives us all a uniform platform to work on and collaborate effectively between companies. But before making this switch my boss wants me to compare and contrast other options.
I'd appreciate any suggestions, thank you.

 

[DelJo63]

Office 365 is on an annual subscription fee - - you pay over and over. Secondly, it's all cloud based and security can be a real issue. IMO, that's an option for individuals, NOT a business.

For collaboration, consider TeamViewer - - just google for it.

Currently, you can't use File Sharing. Can you clarify:

gives us all a uniform platform to work on and collaborate effectively between companies​

 

[DelJo63]

Here's a Sharing technique using Role Based authorization

• https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/collaboration

Be advised: Sharing files has an inherent issues:

1. user-1 creates and shares the file, closes the file
2. user-2 (from same domain OR from the other domain) grabs the file, changes it and saves the changes.

How do you know who changed what and when? Word has a change tracking feature, but it must be enabled per document and before the first SAVE. I'm not sure that EXCEL has that feature.

 

[Trinergy]

Office 365 is great for sharing. It comes with a SharePoint site for sharing as well as 1TB of space on the E3 license. You can also add VoIP capabilities with unlimited calling through Skype for Biz. Your users can keep their email addresses and you can create separate Address Book Views to organize them under one org. Believe me you will not go wrong. All companies are moving over to 365 if they already had Office and Windows as Software Assurance licenses' were basically subscriptions anyway. On top of it all you get support. $25 a user for E3 and $20. With the new Microsoft Teams that you get in 365 you get even more collaborative options. We have become much more efficient since we moved to 365. Especially since we have so many remote employees. Security is second to none. You get more security because you can easily enable two factor authentication. There distributed data centers allow for so much more redundancy then you could dream up yourself. If anything invest in getting another ISP and two cheap broadband providers as the cloud becomes more important.

 

[ITLogicSystems]

Office 365 is great for sharing. It comes with a SharePoint site for sharing as well as 1TB of space on the E3 license. You can also add VoIP capabilities with unlimited calling through Skype for Biz. Your users can keep their email addresses and you can create separate Address Book Views to organize them under one org. Believe me you will not go wrong. All companies are moving over to 365 if they already had Office and Windows as Software Assurance licenses' were basically subscriptions anyway. On top of it all you get support. $25 a user for E3 and $20. With the new Microsoft Teams that you get in 365 you get even more collaborative options. We have become much more efficient since we moved to 365. Especially since we have so many remote employees. Security is second to none. You get more security because you can easily enable two factor authentication. There distributed data centers allow for so much more redundancy then you could dream up yourself. If anything invest in getting another ISP and two cheap broadband providers as the cloud becomes more important.

I agree with @Trinergy an Office365 subscription for all of your users will allow for a uniform platform for all, email, docs, etc. sharing & collaboration with ease! I have multiple customers I have moved over to office365 & it's been the answer to users both local & in different geographical locations. The only downside I have seen thus far is skype messenger, most users do not like how the chat history ends up as an email in exchange - most would rather chat history stay within the skype messenger app itself. Hope this helps in your decision, take care!

 

[Trinergy]

I agree with @Trinergy an Office365 subscription for all of your users will allow for a uniform platform for all, email, docs, etc. sharing & collaboration with ease! I have multiple customers I have moved over to office365 & it's been the answer to users both local & in different geographical locations. The only downside I have seen thus far is skype messenger, most users do not like how the chat history ends up as an email in exchange - most would rather chat history stay within the skype messenger app itself. Hope this helps in your decision, take care!

That is supposed to change with the merging of Teams and Skype for Biz. Should happen soon. We use Teams for chat now.

 

[ITLogicSystems]

That is supposed to change with the merging of Teams and Skype for Biz. Should happen soon. We use Teams for chat now.

@Trinergy Thanks for the info! My customers will be pleased.