Microsoft 365 from Cologne – set up, supported and backed up

No – at least not in the sense most people assume. Microsoft makes sure that the service is available and that its data centres do not fail. You are responsible for the content of your mailboxes and files.

Deleted items only stay in the recycle bin for a limited time; after that they are gone. That does not help with a compromised account or a ransomware attack that spreads via a synchronised drive. That is why we always set up an additional, independent backup.

Preparation takes one to three weeks depending on size; the actual cut-over takes one night. The mailboxes are copied in the background beforehand while you carry on working as normal – the switch only happens at the end.

On the morning after the cut-over, we are available or on site, because that is when the typical small issues come up: a signature, a mobile phone, a printer that was still sending via the old server.

Yes. Your domain and all addresses remain unchanged – nothing changes for your customers. Your old emails, calendars and contacts come across too, as do distribution lists and shared mailboxes.

No. Many of our clients run a hybrid set-up: email and collaboration in Microsoft 365, with their ERP system or design data still on a server on their premises. This is often the most cost-effective solution – especially when large volumes of data are involved or a specialist application requires it.

We check what makes sense for each area individually and then run both.

We agree this with you once as a general rule, instead of deciding it anew each time: block access, convert the mailbox to a shared mailbox or hand it over to a successor, set up forwarding for a transition period, then archive it according to your retention period – and the licence is freed up.

This saves licence costs and prevents an active account with a known password from remaining in the system.

In most cases, yes. The comparison is not “licence costs versus zero” but “licence costs versus your own mail server, including power, maintenance, backup and replacement hardware”. From around five to ten workstations, the comparison almost always comes out in favour of Microsoft 365.

We work it out with your actual figures before you decide.

Microsoft charges per user per month, tiered by plan. The Business plans are aimed at companies with up to 300 users; above that, the Enterprise plans apply. The largest plan costs several times as much as the smallest – what matters is which components you actually need.

The binding prices are published by Microsoft and change regularly; we deliberately do not quote them here, because an outdated figure would be worse than none. What we do: go through with you which features each employee really needs.

Because that is exactly where the money is. In almost every environment we take on, we find users with a large plan who only use email and Office – and accounts belonging to people who left long ago.

Teams is already included in most Microsoft 365 business plans – so it is rarely worth licensing it separately. Additional costs only arise for telephony via Teams, for larger webinars and for advanced management features.

If you want to use Teams for telephony, please compare this with a dedicated phone system. Both work; which is cheaper depends on the number of extensions and on what you need in terms of call queues and integrations.

Copilot is licensed per user on top of the base plan, which makes it a noticeable surcharge. The honest answer: it pays off for people who write a lot, have many meetings or regularly analyse large documents – for everyone else, it does not.

Our recommendation is therefore not to equip the whole organisation but five to ten people for three months. After that, you will know whether the surcharge pays off instead of guessing.

Another prerequisite is well-organised file storage: Copilot searches whatever a user has access to. Where permissions are too broad, it brings to light things that nobody should see.

Quite possibly, yes – it is the most common finding when we take over an environment. Three causes: active licences for employees who have left, plans that are too large for people with simple needs, and add-on services that were tested once and never cancelled.

For a typical-sized business, an inventory takes a few hours. You receive a list of who has which plan and when each person last signed in.