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HCL Verse vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

HCL Verse
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Email Applications (13th)
Office 365
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Content Collaboration Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Messaging and Collaboration solutions, they serve different purposes. HCL Verse is designed for Email Applications and holds a mindshare of 2.3%, up 1.3% compared to last year.
Office 365, on the other hand, focuses on Content Collaboration Platforms, holds 10.2% mindshare, up 4.9% since last year.
Email Applications Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HCL Verse2.3%
Google Workspace15.1%
Microsoft Exchange Online11.1%
Other71.5%
Email Applications
Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Office 36510.2%
Google Workspace9.3%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise8.6%
Other71.9%
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

MR
Diretor at MASTERDOM
Stable, scalable, and good interface
HCL Verse has a nice interface and it is a practical email solution. There are a diverse set of features, such as the search bar on top of the screens. The usability from the old applications to the new version has been very good. It was great that we were able to migrate applications from the older version to the new one.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Collaboration has transformed how our teams work and Copilot now drives faster daily decisions
The interface for the security and compliance center could be simplified. It changes frequently, which can make it somewhat difficult for admins to stay up-to-date on where specific settings are located. The compliance center modification or improvement of Office 365 needs to be introduced. The rest of the features feel acceptable to me. The reason it is not a ten is because of the complexity of managing the vast array of admin settings, which requires a specialized IT team. Even though it meets industry standards for decent security compliance such as SOC and HIPAA, the complexity of managing the admin settings needs to improve.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the mail server."
"HCL Verse has a nice interface and it is a practical email solution. There are a diverse set of features, such as the search bar on top of the screens."
"Office 365 has positively impacted my organization by making the salespeople more accurate because they've been able to use the features in Excel instead of relying on the calculator or adding machine, and some of the AI with writing and things with Word has helped improve things with that, too."
"One of the most valuable features of Office 365 is the collaboration capability; multiple employees can work on the same document at the same time, which enhances productivity."
"The features of Office 365 that have significantly enhanced my workflow productivity include Excel, which is a very good product that helps assist me with my work."
"Office 365 provides instant access to essential applications such as emails and documents at any time, regardless of location, ensuring that communication is seamless and efficient, making it powerful for our organizational needs."
"Quarantine email alerts to users to allow the email to their inbox (tricky but handy) - tricky if one doesn't have third-party email security, handy if one has got good third party email security)."
"Collaboration and Teams channels are the most powerful tools that help us organize our day-to-day activities and really help us improve our business and add business value."
"Office 365 has many new features compared to previous versions, such as updated graphs and PowerPoint templates, and it is mostly updated automatically, reducing the need for manual updates."
"I can recommend Office 365 to people because it allows them to concentrate on their core job while Microsoft handles any problems from the cloud."
 

Cons

"The solution could improve by allowing us to use a color that we want in the editing boxes."
"Security is very important to us, so improvements to this functionality are welcome."
"I would like to see the macro functionality in Excel made simpler."
"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."
"Improvements can be made to the products generic offering. It's not customized for health care. It doesn't understand the meaning of health care related concepts. Providing a greater degree of industry specificity would make the tool much more unique and valuable."
"Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues."
"The integration with mobile services is not so good. It's coming, but they could improve a lot."
"Sometimes the configurations of the error troubleshooting are pretty problematic and there are a lot of issues that happen even if you follow the step-by-step guides. They can work on fixing this issue. If there are a lot of issues in your Windows or your Office or anything, you restart your PC and it works. They need to get rid of this need."
"Microsoft Word is a little bit left behind regarding the tools it has."
"Integration between Outlook calendar and Google Calendar would be a good improvement since many of our team use Android phones and personal Gmail accounts as their main calendar application."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"This is an affordable solution but the price could be improved."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
23%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Office 365 is that it is moderate.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Office 365 can be improved by increasing support, which currently is not efficient and takes a lot of time to resolve issues. It has been observed that support personnel often lack hands-on experie...
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
Email and collaboration are the main use cases for Office 365 at Omagi Media Labs. It is used for internal and external communication in daily work. Groups and Teams groups are created and used in ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Verse, IBM Verse
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Canon Marketing Japan Inc., Australian Trade Commission, BTC, Havas, Canal Barge Co.Inc., RAVInvest, Elemental Path, WDR mediagroup
Me & the Bees Lemonade
Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Email Applications. Updated: February 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.