Limitations of Office 365

Office 365 is new.

The list below may not actually be accurate.

The Internet isn’t always correct.

Microsoft isn’t always correct.

Software changes and receives updates.

Below are the limitations I have found for Office 365 vs. an on-premise SBS server.

1. Must have Reliable Internet Connection
2. Does not support Google Chrome browser
3. Significant Migration Costs
1. No Migration Tools for SharePoint or Linc
4. Service Level Agreements may not work for your organization
5. No Control of Backup or Recovery – Must rely on Microsoft for this (considering their track record for spectacular failure at times, this is almost a deal breaker for me.)
6. No backing out – there is no option to go back to the on-premise model
7. On-line applications lack the full feature set of the off-line versions
1. Word Online
1. No ability to edit tracked changes
2. No Format Painter
3. No Symbols, Shapes or Equations
4. No Smart Art
5. No Translation or Thesaurus
6. No Spell check in Excel
2. SharePoint limited functionality
1. No search from Exchange or Windows 7 search
2. Storage is only 10G with 500MB/user
3. Exchange Online Limited Functionality
1. Does not support unlimited message or mailbox size
2. No Managed Folders
3. Retention limits – See Below
4. Rule limitation is 64Kb
5. No Public Folders
6. No GAL segmentation
7. 1500 Recipients per day

Retention Limits: The maximum number of days that items can remain in the Deleted Items folder before they are automatically removed is 30 days. The maximum numbers of days that items removed from the Deleted Items folder are retained before they are permanently deleted is 14 days. The maximum number of days that items can remain in the Junk E-mail folder before they are automatically removed is 30 days.

There are a lot of things that Office 365 does better and that list will be published soon.