T-Mobile & Microsoft
Managing a small business is difficult as it is already during this pandemic-affected economic climate. Having to manage connectivity and IT and pay for both is just another added layer of complexity for many business owners. To address two of those challenges at once, T-Mobile offers a new set of small business rate plans. Besides adding these plans, T-Mobile is also getting more serious about supporting business users by doubling the team dedicated to helping SMBs and has updated its more than 7,000 retail locations to serve small and medium businesses better. T-Mobile is increasing its focus on small business users after the Sprint merger, which admittedly had more business experience. T-Mobile is now announcing a partnership with Microsoft to broaden its small business rate plan offerings to include Microsoft 365.
T-Mobile is taking Small Business seriously with these two new Magenta Business plans; T-Mobile markets its small business plans as Magenta for Business. This Magenta for Business is an offshoot of the company's Magenta plans for consumers with the top plan being Magenta Plus. T-Mobile has designed The Magenta for Business and Magenta Plus for Business plans for businesses with 12 lines or fewer. The traditional Business Unlimited plans are for companies with 13 or more lines. Magenta for Business includes a single Microsoft 365 Basic license for a single line or two licenses for two lines or more at $40 per line and is a $5 per month value. For those unaware of Microsoft's new business plans, Microsoft 365 Business Basic includes exchange email, 1TB of OneDrive storage, Sharepoint, and Teams. Magenta Plus for Business costs $50 per line with AutoPay and offers one Microsoft 365 Basic license and one of Business Standard. Microsoft 365 Business Standard includes everything that Basic has, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access and is a $12.50 per month value. Magenta for Business provides 3GB of 4G LTE hotspot data while Magenta Plus for Business offers 20GB per month. Additionally, the Magenta for Business Plus plan has unlimited in-flight Wi-Fi and Scam Shield.
Right now, as an incentive to encourage businesses to switch, T-Mobile is also offering 90 days of free service when you switch six or more lines over with AutoPay. Both plans still offer T-Mobile's 4G and 5G networks with unlimited talk, texting, and data. Since T-Mobile is currently the operator with the best 5G coverage and is on track to significantly improve 5G speeds, it makes sense to consider T-Mobile as a small business wanting to upgrade to 5G. Even though T-Mobile's current 5G network is primarily low-band 600 MHz, that provides the best coverage, and it will quickly get support from the 2.5 GHz band T-Mobile acquired with Sprint, which we have seen can deliver upwards of 1GB/s bandwidth. T-Mobile's network rollout is still a work in progress, but it has shown that it is by far the most aggressive of the operators in expanding coverage and speed and is the first with a Standalone 5G network.
While T-Mobile's business offerings catch up with the newly merged entity's size, the company's network is proving to be a world-class 5G network. T-Mobile's initial focus on small businesses makes sense when you think about who is needing fast and reliable connectivity the most right now. Many companies have experienced drastic changes in how its industries operate, and that is especially true of small businesses. T-Mobile's focusing on small businesses (12 lines or less) makes total sense since it is much easier to convert to a new carrier than corporate accounts with thousands of lines and may take years of negotiation to win. T-Mobile has built a good reputation as a carrier, and now is the time to capitalize on that reputation by growing its business offerings and customer base.
I believe that T-Mobile's addition of Microsoft 365 is very wise, as Microsoft is the default for many small to medium businesses. Microsoft also gains more customers through this relationship and strengthens its ecosystem while also increasing Azure utilization through Microsoft 365. To me, the Magenta for Business Plus plan makes the most sense because it gives you the full T-Mobile and Microsoft 365 experience as a business for only $10 more, and there is more than $10 of value-added. These new plans also simplify small businesses' IT expenses and consolidate productivity and connectivity under one bill that automatically pays every month.
Note: This article contains significant contributions from Moor Insights & Strategy Analyst Anshel Sag.
Disclosure: Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided paid research, analysis, advising, or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including 8x8, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Applied Micro, ARM, Aruba Networks, AT&T, AWS, A-10 Strategies, Bitfusion, Blaize, Calix, Cisco Systems, Clear Software, Cloudera, Clumio, Cognitive Systems, CompuCom, Dell, Dell EMC, Dell Technologies, Diablo Technologies, Digital Optics, Dreamchain, Echelon, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Flex, Foxconn, Frame, Fujitsu, Gen Z Consortium, Glue Networks, GlobalFoundries, Google (Nest-Revolve), Google Cloud, HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Honeywell, Huawei Technologies, IBM, Ion VR, Inseego, Intel, Interdigital, Jabil Circuit, Konica Minolta, Lattice Semiconductor, Lenovo, Linux Foundation, MapBox, Mavenir, Marseille Inc, Mayfair Equity, Meraki (Cisco), Mesophere, Microsoft, Mojo Networks, National Instruments, NetApp, Nightwatch, NOKIA (Alcatel-Lucent), Nortek, Novumind, NVIDIA, ON Semiconductor, ONUG, OpenStack Foundation, Oracle, Poly, Panasas, Peraso, Pexip, Pixelworks, Plume Design, Portworx, Pure Storage, Qualcomm, Rackspace, Rambus, Rayvolt E-Bikes, Red Hat, Residio, Samsung Electronics, SAP, SAS, Scale Computing, Schneider Electric, Silver Peak, SONY, Springpath, Spirent, Splunk, Sprint, Stratus Technologies, Symantec, Synaptics, Syniverse, Synopsys, Tanium, TE Connectivity, TensTorrent, Tobii Technology, Twitter, Unity Technologies, UiPath, Verizon Communications, Vidyo, VMware, Wave Computing, Wellsmith, Xilinx, Zebra, Zededa, and Zoho which may be cited in this article
