You’ll be glad to hear that it isn’t a new version of Office. Office 365 in fact is an on-line business IT system for email and collaboration and will be released early 2011. Get ready to be confused!
Microsoft named it Office 365 because it is tightly integrated with Office 2010 and also contains an on-line version of Word, Excel and Powerpoint, called Office Web Apps.
Office is arguably Microsoft’s most well known and profitable brand so we suspect that Microsoft tries to use this brand to create a bridge to its on-line services.
What can I do with Office 365?
Office 365 includes an email & calendar system, contacts, a collaboration system and a communication & meeting system. It will include lightweight on-line versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and optionally, a license for the full Office 2010 software.
The system is completely hosted by Microsoft and paid for on a monthly or annual basis. Like a utility.
Office 365 is highly optimised for businesses and includes numerous benefits and benefits over in-house systems or scattered applications for various functions.
What’s the competition like?
The main competitor is Google Apps which has many similar components. Google Apps is a bit cheaper but slightly less polished. It does provide a very open platform however with many add-on applications such as CRM or Accounting.
Do I need Office 365 for my business?
Thanks to Microsoft and Google there are hardly any excuses left not to get a better and smarter IT system. Whether you are a sole trader or multinational, you will benefit from an integrated productivity suite like Office 365 or Google Apps (or the in-house alternatives if you need to, or want to burn some money…).
As Microsoft puts it: “With Office 365, your local bakery can get enterprise-calibre software and service”
Office 365 will be offered from $6 user/month (around £3.75) and Google Apps even comes in a free version, as I said, no excuses ;-!
About Ben Stege
