Microsoft 365 alternative for Indian companies

The short answer: Microsoft 365 is a strong product, and for many companies the right one. An alternative is worth considering when three things bother you: a per-user bill that rises with every hire, company data held on a vendor's servers, and AI sold as a further subscription. DNX OS takes a different route: an operating system with the office suite, HR, chat and an on-device AI assistant built in, on machines you own. It opens and saves Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. It is in beta from December 2026, launches in January 2027, has no published price, and does not yet do everything Microsoft 365 does.

Who is this page for?

Indian companies of roughly 5 to 50 people that use Microsoft 365 today, or are about to buy it, and want to know what else exists. It suits offices whose work is documents, spreadsheets, mail and internal chat. It is not for a desk that depends on Windows-only software, or for a team that needs something running next week.

What does Microsoft 365 do well?

These points come from Microsoft's own documentation, read on 12 November 2026.

• It is a complete rented service. Microsoft describes Microsoft 365 for business as "a subscription service that lets you run your organization in the cloud while Microsoft takes care of the IT for you".
• The plans are clearly layered. Business Basic includes a 50 GB mailbox with a custom domain, Microsoft Teams, the web versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user. Business Standard adds the desktop versions of the apps. Business Premium adds protection against phishing and ransomware and security for iOS, Android, Windows and macOS devices.
• Its file formats are the ones everyone else follows. This is our own observation, not Microsoft's wording: if a client sends an Excel workbook with macros, the desktop apps open it as intended.
• It offers a residency commitment for India. Microsoft's Advanced Data Residency add-on lists India among its Local Region Geographies and names the Business Basic, Standard and Premium plans as qualifying subscriptions. Microsoft states that customers must cover 100 per cent of paid licences in the tenant with the add-on.

We have not quoted prices. Read them on Microsoft's India site on the day you decide. Our article on the 2026 price changes gives sourced US dollar list prices and explains why we did not quote rupee figures.

How does a stack you own compare?

What does DNX OS not do yet?

• No browser co-editing. DNX Office is desktop software working on files. Six people cannot type into one document at once.
• Macros need testing. If finance depends on spreadsheets with macros written for Excel, check those exact files first.
• No hosted mailbox. DNX Mail reads the work mailbox you already have. It is not a mail service, it has no calendar or address book of its own in this build, and it shows one mailbox at a time.
• Chat is for your own team. There are no guest accounts for clients, no threads under a message, and search does not cover the full text of old messages.
• Payroll is partial. DNX People does not compute TDS and does not handle ESI, gratuity or bonus.
• It manages its own computers. DNX Guard reports on DNX OS machines, not Windows or Mac.
• The assistant is a small model. Good at everyday drafting and summarising; a very large cloud model does better on long, difficult research.

If two or more of these are essential to you, stay where you are for now.

How do you switch without disrupting work?

1. List what each role really uses. Many people use mail, Word and Excel and nothing else.
2. Test your ten ugliest files in DNX Word and DNX Sheets: tracked changes, macros, large workbooks.
3. Pilot with five people for four weeks. Keep their Microsoft 365 licences during the pilot.
4. Leave the mailbox where it is. Point DNX Mail at it. Nothing changes for your correspondents.
5. Keep Microsoft formats. Clients should notice nothing.
6. Move internal chat last, over four weeks, as described in moving branches to company chat.
7. Export before you cancel, and let licences lapse at renewal, not before.

A mixed office is a sensible result. Keep Microsoft 365 for the desks that need it and stop paying for it on the desks that do not.

Which articles show the apps?

• DNX Office: open and save Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• DNX Mail: a business email app with private AI
• DNX Team Chat: team chat that keeps data in India
• DNX People: HR and leave software for small companies
• Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace vs Zoho One in India
• The guide to replacing the vendor stack

To try it on your own files, apply for the beta, or read about DNX OS first.

Sources

Both pages were read on 12 November 2026. Microsoft 365, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive and Teams are Microsoft's products and names, used here only to identify what is being compared.

• Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 for business overview: the description of the service and what each Business plan includes.
• Microsoft Learn, Advanced Data Residency: overview and requirements: India as a Local Region Geography, qualifying subscriptions and licence coverage.