What is Office 365 ?

 

I’ve seen a little buzz on Office 365, but hadn’t really looked into it yet. Then, someone on Facebook pushed this article at me, and I know now that I really need to check into it.  I’m thinking that a lot of companies, small and large, could find value in this. Check out a few excerpts:

First Look: Microsoft's Office 365 Will Shake up IT – CRN, APR 18, Edward F. Moltzen

Microsoft’s Office 365 is such a radical shift in both technology and its delivery that there will scarcely be any segment of the IT industry that won’t be impacted in a big way…

Office 365, frankly, is to Google Apps as XBOX 360 Live is to Pong. It’s in a different league entirely and represents a leap into the next generation of computing…

Office 365 represents Microsoft’s boldest move to date into the cloud. It very well could be Microsoft’s most successful product for IT since Windows XP. But it is a near certainty that it will change the rules for deploying enterprise software and, in the process, force its competitors to adapt as well.

Office 365: What It Does:

• For $6 per month per user, Office 365 bundles Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint and Lync (formerly known as OCS) into a turnkey solution for up to 25 people in an enterprise;

• It integrates this technology with mobile platforms including iPhone and Windows Phone 7;

• It integrates both with Office 2010 and some earlier platforms, as well as Office Live, it’s free, web-based extension of its productivity suite;

• It works almost seamlessly with Mac OS X;

• It’s fast. We noticed almost no latency in working in Office 365 even in a 3G Internet connection as slow as 1.11 Mbps;

• It takes about 5 minutes to set up an SMB enterprise productivity and collaboration infrastructure on Office 365, and about a minute to add users and tailor their permissions and access; …

CRN’s slideshow on Office 365 features