Microsoft Office 365, The Game Changer Part 5
Over the past 4 articles on Office 365 we have focused on the products, pricing, functionality, and the path to the cloud. In this the final of 5 articles, we will focus on another product that although right now is a separate part of the suite, it is equally important for our customers to consider in their own journey to the cloud.
Microsoft Intune is a new cloud based offering that enables administrators the ability to secure PC’s from virus threats with endpoint protection as well as many other security tasks. The administrator will receive alerts on any threats to their network while also being able to customize security and firewall settings on each PC as a whole or individually without having to visit the PC in person. One of the most enticing features of the product is how administrators can now easily manage their PC’s from a central web-based console where ever they are, and when ever they want while also being able to support mobile clients. As many administrators know with a traditional on-premise solution managing remote machines is a huge pain, as most times these machines are not able to be configured until they are back on the network which opens many security gaps that we are always concerned about. The most popular functionality is the ability to not only manage these on the move machines, but to also provide remote assistance to the remote workers any time of the day. Every administrator is well aware that deploying applications to machines can be a very expensive and a complicated process, but with Microsoft Intune and its cloud based functionality deploying Microsoft and 3rd party applications, it is not only cost effective with this product but also very easy to do. Another expensive experience is installing, configuring, and managing a monitoring system of your network and Intune has the answer. Intune monitors the heath of all machines on your network and provides trend analysis of the machines which enables the administrator to not only be aware of bad behavior but remotely repair bad behaving endpoints. Clear, concise, and accurate reporting on the heath of the machines is always important but with Intune, you are also able to generate a report of the complete hardware and software inventory in your organization. Often overlooked by administrators when troubleshooting machines is hardware and software configurations, with the reporting out of the box with Intune, we are able to better grasp what could be the core issues.
Lastly with Microsoft Intune, all your machines automatically are eligible to receive upgrade right to the latest and greatest Microsoft operating system! That’s correct every time a new OS is released you now can upgrade every machine on your network to the latest OS ensuring software compliance across the entire organization as well as the utilization of the most secure and robust Microsoft platform available. In essence you will not have to purchase Windows OS licensing for any hardware that is on the Intune Platform now or in the future. So you might ask this all sounds great but how much? Well, we are very pleased to let you know that it will only cost $11 per user, per month for all of the above! Hard to beat that price point and if you would like to see a production demo we can facilitate a demo anytime. Even better, if you would like to set up a trial in your environment, Sovran can also set this up for you for 30 days free and please contact your Sales Consultant.
Written by: Patrick Gibson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing