Office 365 - changing ownership
-
My company bought another company a few years ago. I setup an Office 365 account on their behalf but in the name of my company. The other company recently went bust and the employees bought the company and its assets from the liquidators. As a goodwill gesture we allowed them to continue using our Office 365 account so they had business continuity with e-mail. I now need to transfer our Office 365 account over to their company and dissolve myself of any responsibility for it.
I haven't spoken to Microsoft yet, I was just wondering if anyone has done anything similar and if there any things I should be wary of. I want the transition to be seamless. I'm pretty sure it's not just as simple as changing the billing address, but maybe it is?
-
Their O365 is completely separate from the one for your normal "day to day" company?
-
Correct.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
I haven't spoken to Microsoft yet, I was just wondering if anyone has done anything similar and if there any things I should be wary of. I want the transition to be seamless. I'm pretty sure it's not just as simple as changing the billing address, but maybe it is?
Actually I think it just might be. That and granting a different user admin rights on the account.
-
I'm with Dash, changing the billing address, changing the admin name.... if it already belongs to them and is not tied to you, just hand it over.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
I'm with Dash, changing the billing address, changing the admin name.... if it already belongs to them and is not tied to you, just hand it over.
Oh.. and change the CC.
-
I'l give it a go.
-
I can't change the VAT registration number on the portal.
I also don't seem to be able to remove our existing CC without adding a new one, and I can't add a new one since it will be the new company's credit card, which I obviously don't have access to.
-
@Carnival-Boy The CC is not surprising. They need to "take over" the payments before you release responsibility for them. The VAT bit is super annoying.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
I can't change the VAT registration number on the portal.
I also don't seem to be able to remove our existing CC without adding a new one, and I can't add a new one since it will be the new company's credit card, which I obviously don't have access to.
Aww.. A vat...something we don't have to mess with here.
A call to your reseller is in order.
-
I don't have a reseller.
-
-
I am pretty sure that Microsoft will have to make this change for you.
-
It doesn't sound like this is going to be possible. The only option appears to be to create a new account for the new company, then remove the domain from the old company, then attach the domain to the new company. However, I am concerned about what would happen to e-mail during this transition period.
At the moment, I think the best solution would be for the new company to use Google Apps, as I believe it will be easier and safer to migrate from O365 to Google than it would be to migrate from one O365 account to another O365 account.
I'm surprised this isn't more common, as companies are bought and sold all the time.
-
Have you talked to MS support? This seems like it would be a fairly routine thing to do.
-
I found this. Not sure if it helps you or not.
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
At the moment, I think the best solution would be for the new company to use Google Apps, as I believe it will be easier and safer to migrate from O365 to Google than it would be to migrate from one O365 account to another O365 account.
Sadly this is a good assessment. Being caught in a three month continuing disaster of account migration with O365 right now I can say that first hand this can be a real problem - even when it is Microsoft themselves trying to do this on the back end. Account issues can be epic. I doubt anything would go wrong, but the risk is certainly higher doing O365 to O365 than O365 to Google Apps.
-
Wow... MS looses again because of their own ______________________.
-
@Dashrender said:
Wow... MS looses again because of their own ______________________.
Yeah, the product is great, the account issues are staggering.
-
@coliver said:
Have you talked to MS support? This seems like it would be a fairly routine thing to do.
I've spoken to Customer Support, but not to Technical Support. You'd think it would be routine, but I'm not convinced.
