Enterprises can now get their hands on a brand new, top-tier package of Office 365. Called the Office 365 E5 plan, it costs $35 per user per month, or $420 for a full year.

The new package will eventually replace the existing E4 plan, which will be retired on June 30 next year. The existing E1 and E3 plans will remain available as they are.

The new E5 plan offers a whole host of new capabilities for enterprise users, the most widely touted being the newly updated Skype for Business, which now offers the ability to dial into Skype conference calls from a regular phone, and the ability to broadcast teleconferences to thousands of employees.

Skype for Business is a new product that came about when Microsoft decided to merge Skype with its old Lync communications software. E5 subscribers will gain access to the new PSTN Conferencing service that lets users dial into Skype meetings, as well as the new Cloud PBX feature, which lets IT admins swap out on-premise PBX systems with a cloud-based management portal provided by Microsoft.

PBX features have been available for Skype and Lync for some time already, but only for those with on-premise servers. Cloud PBX means IT admins no longer need to provision and manage a server to take advantage of the capabilities.

“You can get phone numbers directly from Microsoft or port existing phone numbers into Skype for Business and assign or re-assign them to your users as needed,” explained Jeremy Chapman, who is responsible for marketing and communication for Office and Office 365 at Microsoft, in a blog post.

Also new is PSTN Calling, which lets Skype for Business users pay dial to outside numbers without needing to pay for a landline or VoIP provider. Microsoft is offering two plans for E5 subscribers – $24 per user per month for international and domestic calls, or $12 per user per month for domestic calls only.

Besides the new Skype for Business features, the E5 plan for Office 365 also offers new analytics capabilities from Microsoft’s Power BI Pro service. Access to Delve Analytics is also thrown into the subscription, letting users see how they connect and compare to their colleagues.

Microsoft notes in its blog post that its volume licensing program applies to the new plan, so those organizations that need to put large numbers of employees on the new plan will likely be offered discounts. In addition, those companies that wish to upgrade their existing plans to E5 are offered “step-up” plans where they just pay the difference between their old plan and the newer, more expensive option.

Image credit: Efes via pixabay.com