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Microsoft 365 Business Premium vs. Remote Desktop Services

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft 365 Business Premium

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AAn integrated solution, designed for small or medium-sized businesses, bringing together the productivity of Microsoft Office with advanced security capabilities to help safeguard data from external threats and help protect against data leaks. With Microsoft 365 Business Premium, users can empower employees to be productive anywhere on any device. Get more done with AI built into the Office apps. Work better together with a hub for teamwork bringing your tools and people together in one place.…N/A

    Remote Desktop Services

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ARemote Desktop Services from Microsoft is virtual desktop and remote user session technology.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    50 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    48 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    50 Answers
    88%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    33 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    35 Answers
    88%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    Features
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Remote Administration
    Comparison of Remote Administration features of Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Remote Desktop Services
    Feature
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium
    -
    Ratings
    Remote Desktop Services
    4.7
    5 Ratings
    51% below category average
    Screen sharing00 Ratings8.35 Ratings
    File transfer00 Ratings4.75 Ratings
    Instant message00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
    Secure remote access with Smart Card authentication00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
    Access to sleeping/powered-off computers00 Ratings1.12 Ratings
    Over-the-Internet remote session00 Ratings6.95 Ratings
    Initiate remote control from mobile00 Ratings3.64 Ratings
    Remote management of servers & workstations00 Ratings8.24 Ratings
    Remote Active Directory® management00 Ratings8.64 Ratings
    Centralized management dashboard00 Ratings2.23 Ratings
    Session record00 Ratings2.23 Ratings
    Monitoring and Alerts00 Ratings3.13 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Small Businesses
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    N-able Take Control
    Score7.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Google Workspace
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Remote Desktop Manager
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Microsoft 365
    Score8.7 out of 10
    BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access
    Score9.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (108 ratings)
    7.8
    (20 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    8.6
    (57 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Performance
    8.4
    (41 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.4
    (9 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft 365 Business PremiumRemote Desktop Services
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Microsoft 365 Business Premium is well suited to any size organization and is a must-have for business purposes. It is a vital component for the majority of work software needs, as the Microsoft 365 Business Premium package has apps to handle needs that I didn't know we had. It is a great way to provide the required software programs to teams, especially those that work remotely due to the great sharing capabilities built into it. Furthermore, the nonprofit program provided our small nonprofit with vital components for our remote work, while allowing us to keep our donated funds going directly to our mission.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    This is well-suited if you need to log in to a remote machine on occasion to make updates or change configurations. It is also good for a production environment or for environments where people need to log in to use common applications, so you don't need to install the application on each individual client.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Work in sync in different departments.
    • Being able to work from any device or computer. It is a very noble tool in different devices.
    • The work between the different programs (Word, Excel, Notes) that it offers is extremely light and good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • When you connect with RDS, everything looks and feels (and is) exactly like you're sitting at that desktop. This is great for us and for users.
    • You can sign in with RDS and the desktop will be the same as when you left it (if you choose to set it up that way).
    • Although they take some setup, RemoteApps are a very handy way to let users access a program without requiring them to actually connect to a remote desktop on the server.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • adding calendar invitations is not straight forward
    • copying folders from SharePoint libraries to an external drive should not be relying on the available space on the C drive
    • administering mailboxes for our company is convoluted forcing me to hunt for settings and options
    • lack of flexibility on the location of the OST and PST files
    • the new version should not do away with PST files but rather improve their reliability.
    • the PST internal structure is inefficient. the PST file should be able to shrink automatically when one delete emails.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Remote Desktop Services currently does not support multiple monitors on the terminal server. Unlike other applications such as Teamviewer, there's no feature to toggle between multiple screens even if they were connected to the terminal server.
    • Remote Desktop Services should provide an option to scale up or down the screen size after a connection is established. Currently you can only adjust the screen size prior to a connection is established. So you'll have to take a best guess at what display screen resolution will fit best on your screen.
    • Remote Desktop Services should offer some kind of menu to send special key strokes like Ctrl+Alt+Del to the terminal server. Currently the substitute for that particular combination is Ctrl+Alt+End. But I have yet to discover a replacement for other combination keystrokes such as Alt+PrintScrn.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    It is part of the organisation now. It provides and rich feature set and requires a relatively low amount of administration.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Microsoft
    The basic apps are straightforward and easy to use, especially since they have been around so long. I'm referring to the basic apps like Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, etc. Other features such as Microsoft Teams and Sharepoint Sites, Sharepoint Lists, Sharepoint Groups, etc. all require a higher level of knowledge to both implement and use properly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    The initial setup for Remote Desktop Services is complex, and licensing is costly. Each user connects to their virtual desktop hosted by a single server or group of servers, so a change or issue with servers quickly impacts every single user at the same time. Aside from that, users appreciate seeing their same personal desktop from any device or geographical location.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Microsoft
    In the last 5 years, Microsoft has come a long way. The performance of the products has become more and more user-friendly and it seems that the feedback provided by the user community is being listened to and worked on. The processes are very fast and seamless. There are negligible errors and doesn't slow the systems down.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    There are some third party tools available that allow you to manage multiple connections.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    As mentioned elsewhere in the review, Microsoft has historically paid attention to community feedback and issues, but timeliness can improve, and so can the addressing of long-standing issues about which many users have said "I have this issue too!" but no official solution exists. For issues that do have a solution, however, the solution is usually not difficult to find, and the explanation of features on Microsoft's website can mitigate many problems.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As with any Microsoft Server product, support for Remote Desktop Services requires a paid support package. These are license-based and very costly, on top of the already costly product licensing. Microsoft's licensing is complicated to begin with, so setting up licensing alone essentially requires a licensing expert's counsel. There is community documentation and support available on Microsoft websites, as well as community websites.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Before migrating to Microsoft 365 Business Premium, we possessed an in-house exchange server. Therefore, it was difficult for us to look at alternatives to Microsoft for a solution – we did look at the Google Suite of products, but the transition for us seemed less cumbersome to stay with Microsoft from a staff and administrative perspective. While the G Suite does offer us many outstanding products and services, we also didn’t feel that Gmail is up-to-par as a corporate solution the way Exchange/Outlook/OWA are – this alone was also a driving force for our end-users, as there was minimal transition for them to move from an on-premise solution to an off-premise solution. The additional features of SharePoint, Teams, Project, and so many other applications within Microsoft 365 also helped us make a strong case to stay with Microsoft and expand what we were using. The end-user and mobile protections of InTune have also put us at ease when issuing laptops and mobile phones to an almost fully-remote end-user base.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    We selected Remote Desktop Services based upon price alone. Other solutions on the market are significantly more expensive, but if your company can foot the bill you should seriously consider products that have been on the market for longer. The lack of an ability to easily upgrade farm servers has been a challenge for us - although it is still faster than updating an application on 2000+ machines. The lack of a centralized management console in 2008 R2 is also challenging, but you get by with the tools available to you. If you don't have the money to spend on Citrix or VMWare Horizon, Remote Desktop Services is a decent replacement.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • We can now keep work going from anywhere. It doesn't matter if we are on a job site or sitting in the office or working from home for a day or two we don't have to miss a beat.
    • It has unified how we store information so that everything isn't stored on individual computers
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Allowed remote users access from home
    • Shared file access for multipolar users from a centralized location
    • Cost to add additional users when maxed out
    • Purchase multiple licenses for programs to run in virtual machines. Or unable to run on a virtual machine
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots