HCL Verse vs Office 365 comparison

The compared HCLSoftware and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. HCLSoftware is ranked #13 in EA , and holds a 1.6% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #1 in CCP , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 9.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of HCLSoftware users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

HCL Verse

Read 3 HCL Verse reviews

673 Views
377 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Office 365

Read 150 Office 365 reviews

2,236 Views
1,565 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

HCL Verse

Office 365

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HCL Verse and Office 365 based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Email Applications.

To learn more, read our detailed Email Applications Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Email Applications

September 2025

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Helped 869,952 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

Email Applications (13th)

Office 365

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

150

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 1.6%, up 1.2% compared to last year.
Office 365, on the other hand, focuses on Content Collaboration Platforms, holds 9.6% mindshare, up 5.7% since last year.

Email Applications Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
HCL Verse	1.6%
Google Workspace	20.1%
Microsoft Exchange Online	12.5%
Other	65.8%

Email Applications

Content Collaboration Platforms Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Office 365	9.6%
Dropbox Business - Enterprise	10.1%
Google Workspace	9.8%
Other	70.5%

Content Collaboration Platforms

Featured Reviews

Marcos Roberto Silva

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.

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Gary Cook

Executive at Empowered Analytics

Access to advanced features boosts productivity despite pricing concerns in developing regions

I need to do maintenance for Office 365 very seldom, once a year. In the maintenance process for Office 365, we have about 12 people involved. For the maintenance side of Office 365, only one person is involved. Looking at Office 365's pricing, I would give it a 4 on a scale from 1 to 10. My overall rating for Office 365 is an 8 out of 10, but for the product itself, I would give it a 10. I would definitely recommend Office 365 to other businesses, probably a 9 out of 10 for recommendation. This is only because of its price and the fact that they do not take into account developing countries such as South Africa, where they should give us more favorable prices or local prices. We do not have a partnership with Microsoft, which is a sore point for us. We have reached out to Microsoft South Africa, and they are very hard to contact and largely uncooperative. We are a B-Level 2 and a B-Level 1, which are local affirmative action ratings that companies get. Level 1 is the highest, and Level 8 is the lowest. We hold amongst the highest BEE ratings, but we have not found Microsoft South Africa to be forthcoming or very open. We should have a partnership with them, and we run Power BI as we are a Power BI shop now. I strongly would want to see a box within Office 365 for our team to have ChatGPT through OpenAI as well. We use Excel as a data source for many tasks and find that it integrates really well with Python. We write a lot of Python code and use Excel as a data sheet many times, and we operate through SQL and other zero elements as well. From an Office 365 viewpoint, we find that with Copilot and Python and Excel's provision for Python, it is very useful.

Read full review

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."

"The best features with Office 365 include the ability to access email anywhere since it's not an on-premises server, it's in the cloud, which saves us on storage and exchange administration, making it a significant change going from on-premises, which we were for the longest time, to the cloud, so it's definitely a benefit."

"OneNote is the feature I use the most. We also frequently use the Power Apps features."

"If you have a global solution, you can go from one product to the other very easily. And then you can share data between all the different tools of Office which is good because participation and sharing is very good. That's the most important aspect of Office 365."

"The product helps us be more efficient. It helps us to have a standardized way of doing things."

"The most valuable feature of Office 365 is automatic saving. If something happens on the computer your work is saved."

"The technical support is outstanding."

"The way the ERP presents information for the user is very good."

"Cloud-based management is valuable and software deployment is positive."

More Office 365 pros

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."

"We have had some connectivity issues."

"Could include integration with other single sign-on solutions."

"I'm not sure if there are areas of improvement. For us, it's working quite well."

"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."

"The one big problem with the solution is if you are presenting in Teams and someone puts their hand up, you don't get a notification. If you are running a meeting and just presenting you don't know that people have their hands up and want to ask a question."

"There are several additional features we would like to see, such as advanced features of SAN protection in Office 365. The main thing is the SAN protection; we would like to see a lot of advanced features added because we had a lot of spam attacks."

"Data protection and email security are almost the same for all the organizations, irrespective of their segment (SMB or enterprises), with standard subscription at least basic Data loss prevention and Advance threat protection can be enabled for SMB segments, it is available in enterprise version / Premium versions."

"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."

More Office 365 cons

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."

"Most of the time, we purchase Microsoft Exchange licenses, which are less expensive and provide only an email platform and 50 gigabytes of email storage for free."

"I think that we pay $9.99 USD per user, monthly."

"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."

"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."

"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."

"The pricing is high and has actually caused us to limit the number of licenses we purchase due to budgeting."

More Office 365 pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Applications solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Government

27%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

University

Computer Software Company

18%

Outsourcing Company

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	62
Midsize Enterprise	29
Large Enterprise	68

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?

My experience with the pricing, licensing, or setup costs with Office 365 is that it's the same thing; I'm not really involved with the pricing, so that's not my area of responsibility.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Office 365?

I don't think of any areas that could be improved or things that I would want to see in the next releases of Office 365. Microsoft could improve their support; I don't deal with Office 365 or Offic...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Office 365?

The main use cases for Office 365 are both for our clients and internal use.

See all answers

Comparisons

HCL Notes vs HCL Verse

Compared 56% of the time

Microsoft Exchange Online vs HCL Verse

Compared 13% of the time

Hub vs HCL Verse

Compared 13% of the time

Huddle vs HCL Verse

Compared 11% of the time

HCL Domino vs HCL Verse

Compared 8% of the time

More HCL Verse Competitors

Google Workspace vs Office 365

Compared 55% of the time

Dropbox Business - Enterprise vs Office 365

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft OneDrive for Business vs Office 365

Compared 6% of the time

Quip vs Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

Amazon WorkDocs vs Office 365

Compared 5% of the time

More Office 365 Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Email Applications

September 2025

Download HCL Verse product report

Buyer's Guide

Office 365

September 2025

Download Office 365 product report

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

IBM Verse is a powerful email hosting solution that enables users to access their business communications from a laptop or desktop browser or from a mobile device. This email and business messaging experience is based on an innovative user-centric design, including social analytics and advanced search capabilities. IBM Verse helps users quickly find and focus on what content is most important, empowering them to build stronger working relationships while optimizing business results.

HCLSoftware

Office 365 is more than just Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. It provides powerful services like business-class email, online storage, and teamwork solutions that you can access from anywhere. Bring teams and resources together with solutions like Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business that make working together more productive and enjoyable regardless of where participants are located. Easily implement security and privacy controls to help protect business data and devices against malicious threats and help you meet your compliance obligations. Automatic updates ensure your employees will always have the latest features and security updates.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Canon Marketing Japan Inc., Australian Trade Commission, BTC, Havas, Canal Barge Co.Inc., RAVInvest, Elemental Path, WDR mediagroup

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We monitor all Email Applications reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.