My last article talked about the benefits of heading to the cloud. The cloud is not for everyone. Prospects frequently ask us why they should avoid the cloud – or delay their cloud purchase. Here are some thoughts on when Office 365 migrations may not be a fit.
· Control – you wouldn’t have control of the environment- it would be configurable, but not customizable.
· Integration with other systems in the environment – may need to add hybrid ability.
· 99.9% uptime is not 100%; some clients can achieve better performance in their own environment. Or at least want to be responsible themselves for trying.
· Loss of visibility – unsure of when issues will be resolved, limited ability to escalate outside of Microsoft’s predefined structure.
· Office upgrade- Microsoft will require the current version or one previous one for access to the platform which will require a regular investment in licensing.
· Loss of functionality – for example – mail enabled folders in SharePoint; Public Folders in Exchange are both not supported. Business intelligence features of SharePoint are more robust for the on premise version.
· Dealing with Level I support in a foreign country – it is horrible.
