Article by Harout Albanian of The Digital Terror
With the recent release of the public beta of Microsoft 365, experts only have one thing to say about this software: It will change IT in a manner that has never been seen before. For most people who think that this offering is about providing customers with a bunch of productivity tools, nothing can be further from the truth.
Small businesses, enterprises and governments are the ones who will stand to gain from this suite of applications, and has been presented in such a way that the services offered by Google pale in comparison.
Very simply, it represents a quantum leap into next generation computing.
So, what does Microsoft Office 365 do?
#1: Microsoft Office 365 offers all its top services such as Exchange, Outlook, SharePoint and Lync (also known as OCS) together for about $6 a month to a company of at least 25 users.
#2: These applications integrate with Office 2010 as well as older platforms as well as Office Live too, which is free and the online version of its productivity suite.
#3: Not only does it work seamlessly with Mac OS X but it also integrates this technology with mobile platforms such as Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone.
#4: It’s quick. There is no latency when using Office 365 with a 3G connection.
#5: Easy to set up. It takes about 5 minutes to set up a small and medium business enterprise collaboration and productivity infrastructure while also taking a minute or two to add users and moderate levels of access. And most of all, with no downtime, it looks to be a reliable network for production-quality business solution for the cloud.