-  , Synology Office Suite enhances cooperation and communication ,
- Solutions target costs, enhance security &, support evolving education needs
It’s a crucial time to reevaluate long-term requirements for institutions that have relied on production SaaS solutions for years. Institutions are faced with major challenges, including increased costs and decreased efficiency, as companies like Google and Microsoft continue to offer free unlimited storeroom in 2022. These advancements underscore the importance of adopting techniques that provide balance, flexibility, and control.
By January 2025, Microsoft will roll out major changes to its Microsoft 365 Education programs, including retiring the Office 365 A1 Plus program, reducing store pools to 100TB per client, and restricting some licenses to web-only applications without their equivalent desktop versions, including Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
Some schools may have to reconsider their reliance on SaaS options as a result of these adjustments, which may drive them toward higher-cost paid plans or push them to redistribute resources to maintain functionality. Beyond economic relevance, there are also rising fears over data protection and compliance. Educational institutions handle a lot of sensitive data, including financial and research data for students. This makes them prime targets of cyberattacks, which target nearly 80 % of institutions annually ( Netwrix, 2024 ). However, compliance with regulations such as FERPA and GDPR requires safe, secret, and quantifiable information management practices, which some SaaS solutions may struggle to join.
Shifting to an on-premise productivity solution offers educational institutions increased control over their data, cost predictability, and storage scalability. On-premise solutions can provide a stable framework that is better suited for long-term needs than SaaS offerings, which are prone to subscription price increases and unanticipated changes to their service features. Locally stored data is also used to protect privacy, assisting schools in meeting compliance standards while safeguarding sensitive information.
Synology Office Suite, one of the on-premise productivity solutions, improves collaboration and communication by allowing for secure file storage, granular sharing permissions, real-time document editing, and instant messaging, as well as facilitating both group projects for students and file management among faculty.
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For IT administrators, these solutions simplify management with centralized dashboards, system health monitoring, and auditing tools for compliance. Advanced access controls make it possible to delegate tasks effectively between IT teams, resulting in smoother workflows and more effective oversight of digital infrastructure.
Changes from major SaaS providers may cause disruption to operations in the near future, but they also give educational institutions a chance to reevaluate the suitability of their current systems. On-premise productivity solutions provide a sustainable way to address cost issues, increase security, and lay a resilient digital foundation for the changing educational needs of educators and students alike.