Office 365 is a step backwards

Highlandfling · ‎08-05-2012

For those of us who have slow broadband working online is not practical. Therefore for email we work offline reading and composing email then send it in one go.

365 is so slow to upload and download email it is costing me money wasting time for it to happen. I have caluclated that sending email is now takes over 100% more time.

This leads to less efficiency in a small business.

The other matter of some concern is that the ports used are not covered by most security software such as Norton. Therefore on the fly live scanning of incoming and outgoing email is not possible. If something comes attacxhed to an email it gets to the computer and then the security software finds it. Before it never even got that far before being quarantined. I have spoken to Norton about this, they say they did not make the decision to migrate to 365 and are unlikely to change their product. I won't be renewing my subscription in that case.

I also note that some others are reporting increased spam since being moved to 365. I would concur with this, and once again my security software cannot identify it before it gets to me.

I know I could set Outlook to filter it, but why should I spend my time doing extra work because BT made a bad decision?

Common BT tell us why you did this and when you are going to get MS to speed things up?

tetrapackage · ‎09-05-2012

I also suddenly encountered some changes on speed. Maybe their are just doing some maintenance, but if this problem stays for a few days, then they should do something about it.

Highlandfling · ‎09-05-2012

Well the lack of speed has not changed for a couple of weeks now since they moved me over to 365. It is pathetically slow. I have contacted support a couple of times and registered a complaint, but I am not expecting anything to be done. In due course I will probably vote with my feet so to speak.

FSDSMAN · ‎14-05-2012

In my opinion this "upgrade" that BT decided to FORCE upon it's business account holders is the biggest mistake they could ever make. It has caused untold problems in domain registration, maintenance and email settings. It has dramatically affected existing email accounts and connectivity. The migration is complex for existing accounts and is causing a great deal of problems.

I ask this question - was any business customer consulted regarding this?

Will they pay or compensate to business customers for lost business because of the migration errors and time spent to resolve this?

Does this mean that as terms and conditions of the original account have changed and service levels changed they cannot force the contracted period so we can all change providers and get the service we signed up for?

This whole scheme is being "sold" as an upgrade when in fact it is a cost cutting method to reduce service levels to customers and hide the fact that cloud may work for some but is NOT THE CHOICE of any provider for email servers, radius servers, web servers unless you want a yahoo or other virtual account.

Give us what we signed up for or give us a MAC code to go to a provider that can provide what we signed up for.

Their own engineers and help desk support have admitted to me that the whole transformation and migration has been a complete **bleep**-up. I and all of my clients DO NOT WANT OFFICE 365. We want a physical mail server. WE DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO LOG ON 3 TIMES TO VIEW WEB MAIL. WE DO NOT WANT TO HAVE TO RE-CONFIGURE 3000 EMAIL ACCOUNTS because some idiot in the board room had a brainwave to save money on hardware and licence fees. Give us back what we signed up for or give us compensation for the disruption and a MAC code so we can get what we require from another ISP.

Highlandfling · ‎14-05-2012

I could not agree more.

I was never consulted. I was told a couple of times it was going to happen, but I have to say I did not expect the step backwards and I do not quite understand going down this route for email for businesses.

The only answer I have is as you mentioned, cost cutting. In effect this has just passed the costs on to the consumer who has had to pick up the bill for sorting the problems out.

There is an old saying "If it ain't broke then don't fix it". Well BT you have just fixed something that worked well in the main and did not need fixing. Well done!!!!!

I was lucky in that the migration of mail seemed to go OK. My main issue is the massive slow down in speed of sending and receiving email and the increased exposure to security threats now Norton cannot scan incomeing and outgoing mail.

Since this move to Office 365 I have had an increase in spam, phishing email and also emails from Indian and Chinese servers that have a nasty link in them or a virus attached.

I am now using Mailwasher to scrutinise mail on the server and if I don't like the look of it I delete it from the server. Never had to do this before as Norton took care of it. So another job for me.

Hey BT, want to pay for my time? How about a reduction in my bill to make up for you reduction in standards.

I am now looking at another way of getting email, and I also have to consider terminating my contract with BT or at least not renewing it when the time comes.

FSDSMAN · ‎16-05-2012

I am going to terminate around 35 accounts I manage even if they are still contact as this is not what was put in the original agreement and service levels paid for. It has caused many problems with domain management and domain email and some cannot even be set up because of the migration, domains not fully transferred in, accounts taking over 4 weeks to set up. It is a total shambles and the director who pushed this through should have his throat cut as it is strangling the small business that worked happily with what they had. Bring back mail servers and do not outsource it to China and India. Also the security with this cloud service is very poor. I wonder if any financial institutions who have accounts have thought of the consequences of this migration.

buirnsideandy · ‎21-05-2012

Well if BT take the time to view these emails they may get the message but sadly I doubt it. My experience is that you'll have to write to the chairman to get any satisfaction!

It would appear BT have jumped in to bed in a big way with Microsoft. So they now give a more secure option for email clients and then expect us to login to Office 365 using http - very backward considering previously encrypted https was used! I'll just be using Gmail from now on which provides https web mail and secure email client IMAP options.

1275rob · ‎01-07-2012

Sadly I concur with the comments made. I have had a good service with BT for many years but I also believe the change to Office 365 is a bad one. I am now receiving spam every day. Perhaps BT will only respond when this thread reaches 5000 replies so maybe it is time for a change?

bazzaboy · ‎19-07-2012

I totally agree with everything said in your message FSDMAN having just been downgraded to this idiotic Office 365 email system. No emails for over 24 hours now. Have reverted to Hotmail for anything important.

DaveA · ‎19-07-2012

@bazzaboy wrote:

I totally agree with everything said in your message FSDMAN having just been downgraded to this idiotic Office 365 email system. No emails for over 24 hours now. Have reverted to Hotmail for anything important.

Hi,

Have you changed your settings so that they access the new platform? Also have you contacted the Helpdesk to check if there is anything wrong?

Dave A