Sprint Becomes Next Reseller of Office 365

Sprint has signed up as the next significant reseller of Microsoft's Office 365.

However, Sprint is taking a slightly different approach in selling the hosted service and deviates from the usual product tier names.

Apparently, Microsoft has given Sprint the option to rename the tiers as Sprint's offering differentiates between Office 365 professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus, which are available for $6, $8, and $20 per month respectively. The included features are identical with Microsoft's Office 365 P1, E1, and E3 tiers.

Sprint also offers additional plans that are not offered by Microsoft. The "Productivity Suite" is priced at $30 per month and adds IT Helpdesk for environments up to 25 seats. The "Plus" package for $40 adds advanced cloud service assistance and a standalone Helpdesk solution is available for $20 or $25 per month.

Carriers are under pressure to leverage content and not just infrastructure services to take advantage of the cloud economy. Conclusively, Sprint said that it is backing the Office 365 offering by "dependable and continually improving networks and the scalability to give businesses the flexibility needed to grow."

Wolfgang Gruener is a contributor to Tom's IT Pro. He is currently principal analyst at Ndicio Research, a market analysis firm that focuses on cloud computing and disruptive technologies, and maintains the conceivablytech.com blog. An 18-year veteran in IT journalism and market research, he previously published TG Daily and was managing editor of Tom's Hardware news, which he grew from a link collection in the early 2000s into one of the most comprehensive and trusted technology news sources.

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