Microsoft's Office 365 seeks to dominate the productivity cloud

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Microsoft launched its Office 365 initiative which brings its popular suite of office applications to the cloud. Accessible from any browser on most PC's and personal devices, Office 365' bundles Office Professional Online, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and all their respective components.

Starting at $7.00 a month (for professionals and small businesses) Office 365, will include Email, calendar, contacts, personal archive, and 25 GB mailbox storage with 25 MB attachments with Exchange Online, Office Web Apps and collaboration via Sharepoint plus conferencing through Lync Online. 

Microsoft Canada President Eric Gales unveils Office 365 in TorontoTargeted to small and medium businesses (SMBs) Microsoft Office 365 aims to be a one-stop shop for users to set up their websites, manage domains, setup and maintain email accounts as well as gain access to the online versions of Microsoft Office, Exchange and Sharepoint even without a dedicated IT staff.

At today's launch event in downtown Toronto, Microsoft Canada President Eric Gales said that Office 365 was, "a game changer," for businesses of all sizes.

Gales added that, "three quarters of Canadian SMB are ready to invest in their own growth but they want to invest smartly in technology that will work for them."

During the launch, reporters heard from Microosft's product managers, an SMB partner as well as a representative from Bell Canada, the country's largest communication company, which is currently working in tandem with Microsoft to offer Office 365 bundled with their communication services, creating a one-stop-shop for small and midsize businesses. 

“Bell and Microsoft have worked closely for years to help Canadian businesses with their collaboration needs, and we’re happy to partner with Microsoft to bring Office 365 to the Bell cloud portfolio,” said Strahan McCarten, Director of Product Management, Hosting & Cloud Computing, Bell Business Markets, Bell Canada.

Bell's Strahan McCarten (center) :“With Office 365, Bell customers can reduce their costs and maximize their IT productivity whether they’re starting a new business venture or enhancing their existing technology operations.”A big launch for Microsoft and its partners globally, Office 365 is the big cloud move that the software giant has been preparing for some time now. The beginnings of Office 365 started when it released its latest versions of Microsoft Offiice which allowed sharing and uploading to the Microsoft SkyDrive online storage.

Office 365 starts at $7 per user, per month and goes up to $35 per user for enterpriseFor PC users, there will be an offline element that will allow users to work away from the cloud or when they have no Internet connections. As for mobile devices, Windows Phone will support Office 365 right away and will allow for editing, storage and backing up of documents stored in the cloud.

For iOS, Android and BlackBerry users, integration into Office 365 will remain at the mercy of whaterver mobile browser those devices have which could prove to be hit or miss. Office 365 does offer users security, server-side backups and redundancy as well as specific uptime guarantees which competing free services from Google don't. Microsoft also integrates messaging  (chat, text and video) via Lync which will eventually be tied-in to Skype which was purchased not to long ago.