Apple Business Essentials vs. Microsoft 365

Fleetsmith is well suited for companies with a lot of Macs, Mac minis, Apple tvs, etc., that are all over the place (different offices, states, countries, floors, remote employees, etc). It makes the management of these central where it would be almost impossible otherwise.

Incentivized

I usually recommend Microsoft 365 to my clients to keep them away from the Exchange server (sorry!) Our business has a lot of issues with exchange email functions and copy machines. I always recommend they download the desktop version and use the online version as needed. You never know when you will be without an internet connection, but you can usually trust your laptop will have a decent charge, and you can still be productive! Let it sync when the powers are back on - or your connection is alive.

• Fleetsmith does a great job of being unobtrusive on managed devices. After initial deployment, one might never know it’s there except when it prompts to enforce a software update.
• Fleetsmith has sensible defaults and relatively few decisions for the administrator to make; for most applications and configurations, it’s sufficient to enforce a minimum version. For more complex use cases, I suggest falling back on Fleetsmith’s ability to install tools such as Puppet and run arbitrary shell commands.

Incentivized

• keeps me extremely organized. It is so easy to link calendars, emails, and documents.
• keeps me well connected. It is so easy to send a quick message on teams or send an email to a group (for example, my particular team within the company).
• easy to use. Everything is straightforward, making it easy to find an answer to a question. There is even a search option to figure out how to do something within Microsoft.

• We were told that this was in the works and it would be implemented at the beginning of the year 2019. That has still not happened and whenever we ask about this functionality we cannot get a good answer.
• Management of devices that are already in the field—we were told that in order to use Fleetsmith as we would like (pushing apps to devices) we would have to get each device and set them up from a Mac.
• Integration with Windows.

• I wish it was a little simpler to integrate things from one Microsoft Feature into another one. Perhaps I just don't know the tricks for that yet...after all these years of using it.
• I didn't like how it defaulted to saving the document automatically with changes, like Google Docs, but it seems that has now changed, and is better now.
• Generally, I really like how the suite works as is.

Incentivized

I am completely satisfied with the product, and helps me on a daily basis. I do not the exact cost (it is not a cheap suite) but on the medium and long term the return on investment is guaranteed.

Incentivized

It's very simple to use. Sometimes a little too simple, so it can be tempting to fiddle around or tweaks settings that might have annoying downstream impacts. But it's easy to rollback or disable changes anyway. My only wish is that each option set should have its own deeper explanation about the impact of the options on real-world users or security concerns.

It being the default office suite means it's user experience and idioms are things that everyone is generally very used to and fluent with.

The sharing is relatively simple, being directly hooked into Entra AD, and expiry being a first class concern.

It's usability decreases at scale, with multiple people simultaneously making edits can make documents unusable.

Fantastic support. I have had a few queries on how to go about doing things in the best way and the support at Fleetsmith was always very quick to reply and with excellent advice and detail to solve the problem and lead is into our best use of their product.

Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.

Incentivized

Everything works and I use it all the time.

Incentivized

I include Samsung Knox as a competitor in this field because you can have a similar setup with any Samsung devices purchased through a reseller as well. We have gone down this route for a few devices that have needed to be Android and the difference between the two platforms is night-and-day. Apple Business Essentials Manager is much easier to use and manage.

Incentivized

BTE, this search bar is not the best; I couldn't find Google Suite. In any case, it's challenging to find a suite with advanced tools that serves as an office. Google comes close, no one uses OpenOffice (hyperbole), and there isn't much else to use. If you add to that the recent collaborative functionalities, nothing really stacks up or compares; this has everything a person in an office (oversimplifying) needs to get work done.

Incentivized

• Lesser cost for managing device, instead of getting more manpower to do it manually.
• Lesser security threats (which will cause financial damage) as all devices are configured according the the company security policies, such as firewalls, media management, app security updates.

Incentivized

• Microsoft 365 has really been effective and cost saving option for our organization in terms of managing the mailboxes, collaboration and messaging.
• There is multiple must have features which comes all together in one package and therefore is cost effective.
• The only negative impact according to me is its inability to protect the environment or domain from external attacks effectively.