A daily digest of IT news, curated from blogs, forums and news sites around the web each morning. We highlight the key commentary and demystify the real story.
Microsoft ... handles 10 billion ... messages a day and has a 15-year history of deploying and managing massive data centers ... [so] is applying that expertise to several of its popular enterprise products ... all brought together online as Microsoft Office 365.
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Office 365 offers predictable costs ($2 to $24 per user, per month), which can be lower than maintaining an in-house data center. ... For casual users, the Office Web Apps are convenient online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote ... letting you access, view, and edit documents directly from your Web browser.
Tim Conneally adds:
It's been just about six months since Microsoft rolled out the first limited beta ... and now the company is releasing the public beta ... six months before the product's anticipated final launch. ... Office 365 is meant to be a replacement for Office Live Small Business.
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The Office 365 Marketplace ... is an "app store" for Office 365 partner apps and services. ... It will have 100 apps and 400 professional services available.
Elsa Wenzel sells it:
Much of Office 365 will embrace components of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS), which includes Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting.
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Office 365 is not [just] a collection of online counterparts to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Microsoft released just such a collection last June as Office Web Apps. ... Both integrate with Office software on your PC ... [and] will work with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari on the Mac.
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What's in Microsoft Office 365? Office Professional Plus ... Office Web Apps ... Microsoft Exchange Online ... SharePoint Online ... [and] Lync Online.
Brian Oliver Bennett notes the oint in the flyment:
The downside? This access comes at a price. ... Businesses with between 1 to 25 employees ... must pay $6 per person per month. ... Sounds like a reasonable price until stacked up against Googles Google Docs service, which offers much of the same functions but for a flat fee of $50 per year, per employee.
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Adding salt to the wound, companies must purchase a separate license for Office on the desktop. Whats more, using ... Office Live, for free, offers the same interface and productivity options as Office 365 ... [excpet for] the ability to collaborate, plus provide and manage access for a group of users.
But Tony Bradley argues it "virtually pays for itself":
Office 365 is almost a no-brainer for small and medium companies. ... Even the largest organizations could operate more efficiently, and cut costs ... [with] Office 365. ... You have the cost of the server hardware, the OS ... server application ... and the client access licenses. You have the cost of electricity to power the server infrastructure, and ... to run the air conditioning to keep the data center cool. You have the investment ... necessary to perform data backups. And ... the annual compensation and benefits for the IT staff it takes to manage it all.
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Combine Office 365 with Windows InTune PC management, and ... free you and your users up to focus on your core business and do what you do best.
