Product Insights: Exchange Online in Office 365

This is starting to look better and better. I sure hope we (existing BPOS) users can migrate easily and quickly when all this is more public.

Adjusting security policies ourselves would be awesome, because I now have to submit a ticket to get a password expiration policy removed. It would be awesome if we could do this ourselves in Office3 65. I know that is a security issue, but my daughter needs email too and expiring complex passwords make it hard for her to keep logging in her email.

@Loz and @Allen_MSFT , the pricing for current BPOS is also just $5 per user, but there is a minimal amount of users you have to get (5). This means that if you are a single user, you still pay $25 (a month) for BPOS. Will this change for Office 365?

@techieg: Thanks for info, so I understand that scenario is possible.

> But why not properly strategize by planning to move your domain, website, email, collaboration, etc to Office365

My virtual server carries many custom processes like Subversion servers, several other domains etc. You need a dedicated server for such things. Windows Azure Cloud looks nice, but it's not cost competitive in comparison to Rackspace Cloud. I tried several hosters, it's difficult to find a reliable one with good support, so I am happy I finally got everything running with Rackspace.

The only reason for moving mail into Office365 is the new smartphone generation: Even Microsoft dropped local Outlook ActiveSync from WP7, so you are pretty much doomed without an Exchange server like this. As you can see from the forums in the net, this is a big complaint for many smaller businesses that don't have an Exchange server like larger companies.

If Windows Phone 7 takes off you would probably get more customers like me ;-)

Can you clarify the difference between the personal archive, exchange archvie and compliance archive.

Currently the compliance archive is part of EHS, and is merging into the office 365 camp, so the question is what is the archive that you are referring to. Is this the compliance archive or are we talking about something that is different (exchange archive).

Compliance archive means, an archive that can be put on legal hold as well as set up to meet the FINRA requirements

can you clarify this?

thanks

@Techieg: Thanks for info again. The new VM role with small instances (though in beta still it seems) bring it back onto the radar, price seems to be roughly on par with RackSpace now.

> I never really saw any use for WP7 (or any phone) using ActiveSync with Oulook when its not like you will be by your computer all day syncing your email to your phone.

Most people don't sync their emails (no need to use Active Sync there, just go directly to your inbox using e.g. IMAP), but for syncing calendar and contacts. These do not change so much, so you can have it auto-sync via ActiveSync while you are e.g. charge your smartphone on the PC (an charging is pretty often with smartphones).

This Outlook sync so important to many people that HTC even re-built an ActiveSync kind of tool for their HTC smartphones, but unfortunately only for their Androids.

Please allow forwarding emails on the server side (today with Exchange Online I have to ask for the user's permission to do this by requesting his password, logging in to OWA and creating a server side rule. But when we had Exchange server onsite this feature was directly available via Active Directory. This way it is not controlled by the user and I don't need to request his password).

Allen,

You mention that Office365 will support ALL ActiveSync policies. I have been reading about quarantining smartphones in Exchange 2010 so that the Exchange Admin has to approve the device before corporate data can be synchronized.. Will this option be available for users for Office365?

this is as always a big questionable services offered by microsoft...Please sign in but not all will be able to see what it mean...office 365..another way for microsoft to sell milions products to stupid looser (like i am...but not for long)

@Oliver: Yes. That all is possible with Office 365 for small business

@greg: I think this document (download the Exchange Online one) has your answer. Search for the SMTP sections here.

www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

@win Haanstra: You will have the option of 90 day expiration or no expiration, set at the user level using PowerShell.

@Matt: Personal Archive, Journaling, Retention Policies and Legal Hold info can be found in the link above.

@Danny: I am assuming you would be doing this for legal/archiving purposes? Check out the link above about Archiving, Retention and SMTP. You'll need to do a search though, it is a big document.

@Jeff: Did you see this article? You have the ability to block/allow/quarantine devices, you could use this to only allow approved devices.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Comparison_of_Exchange_ActiveSync_Clients

@md: This is a question for an Exchange Online forum. Are you in the beta? If so, you can ask in the beta forums and you can get answered there. You can also try here, which is the BPOS Exchange Online forum, great location of info. social.technet.microsoft.com/.../threads

Here is my best guess from the forums: social.technet.microsoft.com/.../32c8d1ee-a038-42ef-b7da-c034f6deda6e

@s: I am sorry you are having a problem, could you further explain in email? I'd love to chat: Office365@microsoft.com

Are the project, task and calendar functions accompanied by time tracking and invoicing tools?  Is there linkage to Quickbooks?  I am building a Virtual Assistant business and these features are critical to the workflow and payment of my team.

@Joy - Speaking of accounting, I wonder why MS did not take Office Accounting Pro to the cloud for small businesses and tied to Office365 where custom product & service tracking solutions can be tied between SharePoint Online and Office Accounting Pro.

...Office365 could have made the difference for MS in accounting if small businesses are able to develop their custom tracking/ticketing systems in SharePoint Online and seamlessly tie them into Office Accounting Online billing/invoicing/accounting/tax processing/bank transaction & statement downloads. If MS provides the SharePoint Online tracking/ticketing templates even better especially when businesses can extend them further. Would be great to have another competitor in the small business accounting business. We use Office Accounting Pro 2009 and will soon move on elsewhere since MS stopped development of the product.

@Joy Bolluyt: Thanks for the questions. As techieg noted, we have left the SB accounting business, but we are providing a Marketplace within Office 365, where our partners and developers can build on Office 365 APIs and provide solutions directly to our customers. This will all become available with the commercial launch of Office 365.

So I currently have a Barracuda Spam Firewall in front of my exchange server that I'd be unwilling to give up.  Would I be able to keep my MX record pointed at my Barracuda and pass the traffic back to the cloud?  Is there a better (i.e. easy) solution?

Right now, my email accounts are hosted via Go Daddy and I access them by feeding them into my personal Hotmail account, which then feeds into my desktop Outlook.  Kludgy!  If I get Office 365, can I still use my email domain (@red-slice.com)? Does that mean I have to move the hosting over to you? How easy is this?

And since this will be cloud based, does this mean I no longer need to have an Outlook client on my desktop?

Thanks!