Microsoft to offer hosted version of Office

[bill]

Microsoft's newest direction with Office is to put it online. If you wanted hosted Microsoft Office, SharePoint, or Exchange then they'll have something for you.

Microsoft Announces Office 365 [microsoft.com]

Microsoft Corp. today announced Microsoft Office 365, the company’s next generation in cloud productivity that brings together Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. Office 365 makes it easier for millions more organizations to get and use Microsoft’s award-winning business productivity solutions via the cloud. With Office 365, people can work together more easily from anywhere on virtually any device, while collaborating with others inside and outside their organization in a simple and highly secure way. As part of today’s news, Microsoft is also opening a limited beta program for Office 365 in 13 countries and regions.

Office 365 is scheduled to be available worldwide next year. Check out the Office 365 site [office365.microsoft.com] or the Office 365 Community [community.office365.com] blog for more information.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

As the little red riding hood saga goes...

Little red riding hood: "Why Microsoft, what a mighty online presence you're offering".

Microsoft: "Thank you, all the better to watch you with my dear".

of course I prefer my valuable reports and data offline, in the privacy of my own home and office, so take that with a grain of salt.

[bill]

I believe your documents and data could be offline with this. It's the software that is being hosted. (Exchange would be the exception here.)

[dvduval]

If it is free like Gmail and Google Docs, then great. If not, then I'll have no reason to switch.

[J_RaD]

how does this differ from what they are already doing with office live or whatever its called?

[Robert Charlton]

how does this differ from what they are already doing with office live or whatever its called?

Live must be dead. Office 365 is probably positioned in between Office Live and Office 365-24/7.

Microsoft Office 365 Blog
Hello Office 365 [community.office365.com]

It’s a game changer for Microsoft, and it’s going to be a game changer for businesses of all sizes, government agencies and even for education. Announced just today, Office 365 is the next step in the future of productivity. Is this what’s next for BPOS? Yes. Is this what’s next for Office Live Small Business? Yes. Is this what’s next for Live@edu? Yes. Will Office desktop software be available as part of a cloud service? Yes. Is this productivity in the cloud? Yes. And, it’s even more than that. It’s the best of everything Microsoft knows about business productivity in one service.

From the announcement... [microsoft.com...]

...for small businesses... ...$6 or 5.25 euros per user, per month

More per user per month for large businesses and organizations. It does everything except make lunch.

[aspdaddy]

This is already available via partners . Its a good extension of hosted Exchange, Sharepoint & CRM that have been available for awhile.

Its not free but then if you have a lot of users, neither are the licensing , server and maintenance costs of running office business systems.

I always advice clients from a finance perspective when looking at cloud vs onsite: high investment and small operating cost (if you have good IT skills available) vs regular fixed operating cost

$6 per month ? Its getting competitive which is good. Google Apps Premium,Rack space and M$ are the main players each with different focus

[ByronM]

Live must be dead. Office 365 is probably positioned in between Office Live and Office 365-24/7.

Live is hardly dead. THey just finished merging the entire office system together with shared storage within their cloud system and it will be pushed HUGE with integration into Windows Phone & Windows 7

[iThink]

With the pricing of $6/month a lot of small to medium size businesses are going to have a good look at the offering.

[bill]

I heard this on a podcast, but I haven't seen it in the official MS documents: Office 365 licenses each user to have the product on up to 7 PCs. I'd like to see more specifics on how this license will work, but that sounds pretty attractive compared to current physical software licenses.

[J_RaD]

Is microsoft hurting its own IT consultants with moves like this?

[werty]

I am just excited to see OneNote listed in the office suite for this. Hopefully we will see a version of it on the mac when this release comes out.

Google Apps is $50 per year/per user, so like $4.17 a month... so this is pretty competitive. If you get offline versions of office products with this, it is a no-brainer for me to switch.

[aspdaddy]

Is microsoft hurting its own IT consultants with moves like this?

The same cheese has been moved, Cloud is creating a new type demand for consultancy and services, particularly for SMEs & Micro businesses.

[rise2it]

Sorry....I'm old fashioned...I want to be in control, especially when it comes to security.

[J_RaD]

Sorry....I'm old fashioned...I want to be in control, especially when it comes to security.

that is not old fashioned, that is SMART.

The same cheese has been moved, Cloud is creating a new type demand for consultancy and services, particularly for SMEs & Micro businesses.

just feels like they are kinda jerking the rug out from under people that have paid good time and money, its not 100% jerked out but it will be if they keep heading down the road.

[aspdaddy]

Why is wanting to be in control SMART ? Do you really believe that your resources / skills are the best avaiable to implement and manage your security policy?

Seriously, the mindset that things are more secure when they are insourced is very old fashioned. We would all be hosting our own web/email servers if that were true.

Cloud services doesent mean lower levels of control anyway, the permissions / sharing on Google Apps and Live Office put you in full control of who can see what.

[PCInk]

I want to be in control too. I don't really want to rely on other companies when I just want to type in a letter.

This was the early news last week:
[bbc.co.uk...]

It turned out approximately 1,000,000 households were left without broadband.

What would happen to them if they were on cloud computing?

[bill]

It turned out approximately 1,000,000 households were left without broadband.

What would happen to them if they were on cloud computing?

Apparently they would save their documents locally and then sync them with the cloud when the connection returned. The e-mail would be a difficulty though. Then they would need a backup provider or a smartphone with POP/IMAP access to their accounts.

[aspdaddy]

I have clients work like this already with Google Apps, Google Outlook Sync client, and Offisync for Google Docs. You *NEVER* need POP, it should be banned :) Using a smartphone can be tricky in this scanario as you should not use more than 1 sync client, but its possible.

I think the biggest problem is people dont understand it and therfore dont like it - same issues with social media. The good new is the next gen just accept it as the norm