Every category where a model named Microsoft Defender for Office 365 for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Email security	Security operations	31%	1 of 71	9%	47	endorsed leader

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Microsoft Defender for Office 365 across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	1	2	0	3
GPT-5.4 mini	3	1	0	0	4
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	2	0	0	2
Perplexity Sonar	2	0	2	0	4
Grok 4.1 Fast	2	2	0	2	6
Mistral Small	0	2	3	0	5
DeepSeek V4 Flash	2	3	0	1	6
Llama 4 Maverick	1	0	1	0	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	4	0	0	0	4
Kimi K2	2	1	0	1	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	2	1	1	0	4
MiniMax M2.5	2	1	0	0	3

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct29 labels17

Paraphrase25 labels12

Comparative37 labels10not counted in share

Budget-constrained35 labels25

Scale-constrained16 labels3

Negative16 labels3not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative158 labels in all, every segment counted; 57 of the 70 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“should start with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 as the baseline and add IRONSCALES as a phishing-specific layer” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Email security · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“If you're already on Microsoft 365 → Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Best value when bundled with M365 Business Premium” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Email security · paraphrase prompt · first choice

“The Industry Standard Alternatives... such as Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Proofpoint, Mimecast, or Netskope.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Email security · negative prompt · first choice

“If I had to pick one default recommendation without more context, I'd choose Microsoft Defender for Office 365” Perplexity Sonar · Email security · paraphrase prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Limitation: Research shows third-party solutions are significantly more effective (44-93x according to some vendors)” Kimi K2 · Email security · comparative prompt · soft negative

“You should be cautious about treating MDO as your *only* line of defense; it’s a baseline, not a full security platform.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Email security · negative prompt · soft negative

“Weak on standalone advanced threats—layer with others if needed.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Email security · direct prompt · soft negative

“Microsoft Defender | 4.5/5 | 4.4/5 | 86% | Lower” Grok 4.1 Fast · Email security · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Microsoft Defender for Office 365, over the 158 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Proofpoint Email Protection132 of 15822Compare →

Mimecast Email Security107 of 1585Not in the top three

Abnormal AI87 of 15814Compare →

IRONSCALES62 of 15813Not in the top three

Barracuda Email Protection62 of 1582Not in the top three

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration55 of 1586Not in the top three

SpamTitan34 of 1581Not in the top three

Cisco Secure Email29 of 1580Not in the top three

Sublime Security21 of 1584Not in the top three

Google Workspace15 of 1580Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Microsoft Defender for Office 365. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 132 of the 158 answers that named Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gartner.com100

expertinsights.com59

learn.g2.com50

proofpoint.com47

simplyit.biz46

sublime.security43

ironscales.com38

kaseya.com38

esecurityplanet.com36

tech-insider.org36

493 of the 493 domain citations in answers naming Microsoft Defender for Office 365 came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/email-security94

learn.g2.com/best-cloud-email-security-platforms50

simplyit.biz/resources/email-security-platforms-small-business-202646

expertinsights.com/email-security/top-email-security-gateways45

kaseya.com/blog/best-email-security-solutions38

esecurityplanet.com/products/best-email-security-software36

ironscales.com/blog/the-best-email-security-companies-rankings-and-reviews34

consilien.com/news/best-email-security-solutions-small-business-202632

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Microsoft Defender for Office 365

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Microsoft Defender for Office 365; a claim can dispute any of them.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (Plan 1) 4Microsoft Defender 2Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 2Microsoft Defender for O365 1Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO) 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Microsoft Defender for Office 365's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Microsoft Defender for Office 365, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at microsoft.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.