In October 2010, Microsoft announced the Beta release of Office 365. Since then, there has been much discussion and excitement about the significance of this product to the future of cloud computing, and Microsoft’s future direction. I for one, am very excited about Office 365, not just because of the technology behind the product, but more importantly, because of the business benefits it offers small to medium business (SMB’s).
Office 365 is made of four Microsoft products available on a subscription basis to businesses, including:
- SharePoint Online
- Exchange Online
- Lync Online
- Office Professional Plus
In the past SharePoint, Exchange and Lync were too expensive for many SMB’s because of license fees, setup and maintenance costs. Unfortunately many SMB’s missed out, while enterprise benefited from the efficiencies these products provided.
Well, Office 365 will give access to these products to SMB’s at a nominal monthly fee per user, making these products not only affordable to many businesses, but a must have.
Why am I so convinced that SMB’s will benefit from Office 365? I have been using and implementing SharePoint and Exchange in large businesses for the last 4.5 years and have seen the outcomes businesses have been able to achieve with these products. As I am very passionate about SMB’s my only gripe with Microsoft was there products were just not affordable for many SMB’s. It seems Microsoft heard that gripe and has answered it over and above my expectations.
Office 365 Feature Marathon
Since I am so excited about the benefits a business can experience from using Office 365, I thought I would make it easy for decision makers in these businesses to assess the business benefits of Office 365.
Over the next 30 business days (excluding weekends), I will release one article per day, explaining 30 key features of Office 365, which I believe will enhance your business. I will try not to use any technical jargon, and if I have to, I will explain the meaning.
Let’s see if I can get you as excited about Office 365 as I am!
Here we go.
The Full Series
- Day 1: SharePoint Online – The Beginning of Business Productivity
- Day 2: Exchange Online – Enterprise Level Email without the Price Tag
- Day 3: Lync Online – Access Future Business Communication Technology Today
- Day 4: Utilize the Productivity of Microsoft Office Professional Plus with no Upfront Costs
- Day 5: Microsoft is Serious about Securing Your Data in Office 365
- Day 6: Office Ribbon Makes Office 365 Familiar
- Day 7: Office 365 Reduces IT Costs
- Day 8: Search and Work with Documents more Effectively
- Day 9: Office 365 includes a Public Facing Website
- Day 10: Be productive when disconnected from the office with Office 365
- Day 11: Create customer and partner portals using Office 365
- Day 12: Work with SharePoint while offline with SharePoint Workspace 2010
- Day 13: Microsoft Access power users can now build applications in SharePoint
- Day 14: Use Email for Confirmation not Clarification with Lync Online
- Day 15: Find the right person for the job with with My Sites in Office 365
- Day 16: Create Policy and Procedures that transform your Business using Office Office 365
- Day 17: Co-authoring in Office 365 helps meet proposal deadlines when working in a group
- Day 18: Get your team collaborating using a Team Site in Office 365
- Day 19: Work more efficiently on tenders using a Document Workspace in Office 365
- Day 20: Encourage effective meetings using Meeting Workspaces in Office 365
- Day 21: Work from Outlook with your SharePoint data
- Day 22: Office 365 puts an end to Phone Tag with Presence
- Day 23: Increase your Marketing effectiveness with Webinar functionality in Office 365 and Lync Online
- Day 24: Make your Sales People more productive with Office 365 and Online Meetings
- Day 25: Working successfully with a Remote Workforce using Office 365
- Day 26: Share your Spreadsheets with the world without exposing your calculations using Excel Services
- Day 27: Find any document quickly using Enterprise Search in Office 365
- Day 28: Give your users Microsoft Office without a license
- Day 29: Office 365 delivers Voicemail to your Inbox
- Day 30: Make Google fall in love with your business with an Office 365 Blog
