Buying Microsoft 365 is the easy part. Running it safely is the job.
Licences supplied and invoiced in Egypt, tenants built the way they should have been built the first time, and a helpdesk that answers when Outlook stops.
Engineering offices in Egypt, delivering on site across Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and supporting clients remotely across the Gulf, Africa, Europe and the United States.
Tell us how many people and what they do. The plan follows from that, not the other way round.
What businesses call us about
Where Microsoft 365 quietly goes wrong
Nobody notices any of these until the day it matters. All four are things we find in tenants that have been running for years.
The tenant was never hardened
It was set up to get mail working, and then left. No multi-factor, no conditional access, no restriction on where a mailbox can be opened from. Business email compromise in Egypt almost always starts here.
There is no backup, only replication
Microsoft protects the service. It does not protect you from a deleted mailbox, a ransomware encryption event in SharePoint, or a leaver whose OneDrive went with them. Retention is not backup.
You are paying for the wrong plan
Business Premium for staff who only need a mailbox. Business Basic for the people who actually need device management. We see both in the same tenant, and the invoice is bigger than it needs to be.
Nobody owns joiners and leavers
Accounts of people who left two years ago are still licensed and still able to sign in. That is both a security exposure and a monthly bill for nothing.
Which Microsoft 365 plan you actually need
In plain terms, and without pushing you up a tier you will not use. Microsoft changes plan names and inclusions from time to time, so we confirm the current position in writing before you commit.
Business Basic
Web and mobile only. The cheapest way to get a professional mailbox and Teams.
- Business email on your own domain, 50 GB per mailbox
- Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive
- Office apps in the browser and on phones only
- No installed desktop Word, Excel or Outlook
- No device management and no advanced threat protection
Right for shift workers, shop floor and field staff who do not sit at a company laptop.
Business Standard
The common default. Basic plus the desktop applications people expect.
- Everything in Business Basic
- Installed desktop Office on up to five devices per user
- Webinars and Teams meeting features
- Bookings and Planner for scheduling work
- Still no device management and no Defender for Business
Right for most office staff who do not handle regulated or high-risk data.
Business Premium
Standard plus the security layer. This is the one we recommend for anyone handling client data.
- Everything in Business Standard
- Entra ID Plan 1: conditional access and stronger identity controls
- Intune: enrol, configure and remotely wipe company devices
- Defender for Business: endpoint detection and response
- Data loss prevention, information protection and archiving
For an SME this is usually cheaper than buying the security tools separately.
Enterprise E3 and E5
For larger organisations, or where compliance is contractual rather than optional.
- Unlimited mailbox archiving and advanced retention
- Advanced compliance, eDiscovery and audit
- E5 adds Defender for Office 365, Identity Protection and Cloud App Security
- E5 adds Power BI Pro and phone system capability
- Priced per user, so the case has to be made per user, not per company
We will tell you when Business Premium plus one add-on does the same job for less.
Add-ons that are usually worth it
A short list. Everything else we would rather you did not buy until you need it.
- Third party backup for Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams
- Exchange Online Archiving where mailboxes are growing without a retention rule
- Microsoft Defender for Office 365 where phishing is the live risk
- Azure AD Premium P2 where privileged access needs review workflows
- Power BI Pro only for the people who build reports, not everyone who reads them
Backup is the one we argue for hardest. It is the gap most Egyptian tenants have.
What a Microsoft 365 engagement with Stark actually includes
A licence takes ten minutes to buy from anyone. These are the parts that decide whether it works.
Tenant build and domain setup
Domain verification, DNS, SPF, DKIM and DMARC done properly so your mail is delivered and cannot be spoofed. Most delivery problems we are asked to fix are a missing DMARC record.
Identity and multi-factor
Entra ID configured with MFA enforced, legacy authentication blocked, named break-glass accounts, and conditional access rules that match how your people actually work.
Device management with Intune
Company laptops and phones enrolled, encrypted, patched and remotely wipeable. A lost laptop becomes an inconvenience instead of a data breach notification.
Threat protection and email security
Defender configured rather than left on defaults, anti-phishing policies tuned, and reporting that tells you what was blocked and who keeps clicking.
Backup you can restore from
Third party backup for mailboxes, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, with a restore tested before we call it done.
Migration without a lost weekend
From on-premises Exchange, Google Workspace, cPanel mail or another tenant. Mail, calendars, contacts and files, with a cutover plan and a rollback position.
Microsoft 365 work in production
Real Stark work. Client identifiers are withheld under confidentiality. Sector and scope only.
Exchange to Microsoft 365 migration
On-premises Exchange retired, mailboxes and archives migrated with no loss of calendar or delegate access, MFA enforced across the organisation, and backup added for mail and SharePoint.
Tenant hardening and compliance evidence
Conditional access, privileged access review, data loss prevention and audit logging configured so the Microsoft 365 estate could be evidenced during an ISO 27001 and PCI DSS assessment.
Licence rationalisation and device management
Plan mix reviewed per role, dormant licences reclaimed, and Intune rolled out so devices in three countries are managed from one console with one support number.
References can be provided directly, on request and with the client’s agreement.
Three things we will tell you not to do
The questions we get asked most
Can we buy Microsoft 365 licences from you in Egyptian pounds?
Yes. We supply and invoice locally, in EGP, with a proper Egyptian tax invoice. You do not need an international card and you are not buying from a reseller in another time zone.
We already bought licences elsewhere. Can you still support us?
Yes. We can take over support of an existing tenant without you moving the licences, and we can move the billing relationship later if you want to. The two decisions are separate.
How long does a migration take?
For a typical small or medium business, planning takes about a week and the cutover happens over a weekend. The variable is not mailbox size, it is how much undocumented mail flow exists. We find that in the assessment, before we commit to a date.
Will our email addresses change?
No. You keep your domain and your addresses. What changes is where the mailbox is hosted and how it is secured.
Do you handle Microsoft 365 for companies outside Egypt?
Yes. We support clients remotely across the Gulf, Africa, Europe and the United States, and deliver on site in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
What happens after the project ends?
The tenant becomes part of your managed IT agreement: monitoring, patching, licence review, user administration and an agreed response time. We do not hand you a tenant and disappear.
Tell us how many people you have. We will tell you what you should be paying.
A short call is usually enough to say whether your plan mix is right, whether your tenant is secured, and whether anything is backed up.
Sunday to Thursday, 9am to 6pm · Egypt, and remote support worldwide
Our other IT services
Every service below is delivered by the same team, under the same agreement.