Microsoft's new premium Office 365 subscription for businesses arrives

Companies that want almost all of the new features Microsoft is cramming into its Office 365 productivity service can now get them via a new subscription the company will launch on Tuesday.

Office 365 E5 costs $35 per user per month, and includes a smorgasbord of new features. Chief among them are new capabilities in Skype for Business, including the ability to broadcast teleconference meetings to thousands of employees and allow people to call into a group teleconference managed by Microsoft's software.

Skype for Business is essentially a rebranding of the company's Lync communication software, which Microsoft launched earlier this year. Tuesday marks the general availability of features including a PSTN Conferencing service that lets users dial into a meeting being held using Microsoft's communication service. E5 subscribers also get a new Cloud PBX feature that lets IT administrators replace on-premise PBX systems with a cloud-based management portal provided by Microsoft.

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