Microsoft is holding its official launch of its cloud-hosted application suite, known as Office 365 on June 28 and Office 365 general availability on June28th was confirmed by the head of the Microsoft partner organization. Office 365 is Microsoft’s successor to its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Live@Edu and Office Live Small Business products and Microsoft has begun educating its partners and customers about its BPOS-to-office 365 migration strategy………..
Microsoft office 365,the next generation in cloud productivity is coming in June to beat the market of Google’s free office suite and it has been in its beta stage in several countries for some time now and Microsoft has attracted some 100,000 customers to try the Office 365 beta program. Office 365 will be a subscription service that combines online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. And Office 365 will allow users to get to their mail, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Microsoft plans a rollout event June 28 in a swanky Soho gallery space used for corporate events, according to an invitation sent out to the media. There, CEO Steve Ballmer will talk about the Office 365, what Microsoft calls its “next generation cloud productivity service which brings collaboration to everyone While Skylight Soho might not be the venue of choice for a lot of small companies that are watching every dollar, Microsoft sees great potential in landing cost-conscious customers who run their own businesses.
Microsoft is offering Office 365 subscriptions for as low as $6 a month, aimed at small businesses that don’t want to manage their own servers. Tom Rizzo, senior director of Microsoft Online Services, told me recently that the new Office 365 offering was in beta with 100,000 organizations and 2.5 million seats. Rizzo said that there is a lot of interest in cloud services. But he was candid. He said he expects small and mid-size businesses to be the first to adopt because they have less to move to the cloud. What he called the sumer, an interior designer or other one-person operation will be quick to move over, said Rizzo, who said about 70 percent of those who signed up for the Beta were small businesses. At the same time, he said large enterprises will probably move to the cloud more cautiously and maybe incrementally. Maybe moving mobile workers to the cloud first, for example. He said he expects many larger businesses to be hybrids, wanting a mix of cloud storage options to go along with keeping some storage inhouse.
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