Happy new year everyone!!! A new year, a new technology to be discussed. The future of productivity, the formerly know BPOS or Business Productivity Office Suite has been changed to Office 365. As a follow up to the Cloud Computing I have blogged before, Office 365 is a office productivity suite in the cloud.
In this discussion, we will be talking about Microsoft Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Web Apps Services. We will also discuss how do they differ from the local installed software. For what I see it’s like having your own office workspace within the cloud.
Office 365 vs BPOS
The initial idea behind BPOS is to make Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, Office Communication Center and Office Live Meeting without purchasing too much on software and in-house servers. By means of collaboration of tools and messaging with this product, Microsoft could already answer the needs on the company email, messaging, calendaring, document sharing, presence, audio and video conferencing for as low as Php 400.00 per user/month.
So what could Office 365 deliver? It is an integration of both BPOS and Office Web Apps. In the Enterprise Version it also even have a licensed Office Professional Plus working hand in hand with Office Web Apps to promote document sharing and collaboration. This means that if there are updates on the software available on Office 365, it updates automatically and you also automatically adapt the new functions and services of the said software without the hassle of installing and administering it. It is also targeted to have an educational version of this product for schools and other educational institutions.
IT Productivity
The IT productivity transferred to the cloud, that will happen if you choose the service based Office 365. By having this service you will have Microsoft Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Lync which is also known as Office Communication online. All of the software available with Office 365 were all the latest versions of the product and even there is a new update on those product, it will be updated automatically.
Not only the software updates are the advantage on having this service but also there are other takeaways that you will benefit by using this service. The following are only some of the benefits you may have while using this product.
- Data backup, you don’t have to worry about your Exchange Server because it is back up automatically across different locations but if you want to have an another backup server within your offices, you may pay a little extra for that.
- You may not worry about antiviruses and anti-spam because it is already been managed by Microsoft.
- You will still get the same Outlook experience so no training necessarily for email users.
- Just like your local Exchange Server, you may still use it on other platforms like Windows Mobile, Iphone, Mac, PC’s, Android, Blackberry, etc. It also works on different browsers.
- It supports up to 25GB of email storage. (Just like with Hotmail 😉 )
- You may use Office 365 with you own domain email.
Sharepoint on the other hand could be used in collaborations of documents within the office. It may also be used as a document library for documents safekeeping and updating calendars to make your team updated all the time.
Lync could be used in office messaging, audio/video conferencing. You may also integrate your exchange server online with it by means of voicemail and presence. Lync Servers could also be integrated with your PBX system in the future.
What most important on the benefits that we may have in using this service is having a big Data Center that is located around the world. Imagine the Geo-Redundancy that we may have by only using this service.
Office 365 Flavors
Office 365 will be available for Small Businesses, Enterprise, Kiosk and Education.
- Office 365 for Small Business
o Replaces Office Live Small Business.
o Only available for organizations within 50 users
o Doesn’t have most of the features of the enterprise edition
o No Blackberry Synchronization, Active Directory Federation and Email Archiving.
- Office 365 for Enterprise
o May select options on which office features to use and not to use.
o Has single sign-in feature, voicemail and Unified Communication.
o Office 2010 Pro Plus is also an option to this feature.
- Office 365 for Kiosk
o This is a pay per use feature for Office 365.
- Office 365 for Education
o This is targeted for rebranding the Live@Edu offering.
Microsoft promises that Office 365 will be up and 99.9% operational so it is expected to be always online 365 days a year (Maybe that is why it is called Office 365 🙂 )
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