Office 365 Public Beta is Here!

@Allen_MSFT: My company is a Microsoft Partner in Australia that sells worldwide, any chance we will get direct access to the Office 365 beta or even the final (without a volume license agreement as we are a small company) or do partners need to deal with Telstra instead of Microsoft in regards to Office 365?

What happens if I am in Australia and sign up as if I was in New Zealand? I realise that the datacentre may be in a different location but does this really matter. Plus NZ dollar is a lot cheaper!

I am a bit bewildered at Microsoft for not offering Australian's the opportunity to participate in the Beta. It would have been good to have this clearly stated on your website too. I made numerous phone calls to Microsoft and its resellers trying to get access and got a completely disgusting experience. Think I might be sticking with Google Apps and it's cloud connect which works well.

Add another disatisfied Australian Customer !

Over 400 seats in my control and not one will more to 365 hosted by telstra !

Thanks but not thanks microsoft.

Add another disatisfied Australian Customer to the list. I can handle not having access to the beta but only via Telstra, WTF! We are a business of 9 and we havent dealt with Telstra for over 6 years as they are over priced and the service is terrible.  The Aust dollar is currently $1.06 US - surely it doesnt cost nearly 3 times the cost to roll it out in Aust vs US?

Fail. Very disappointing.

Our system admin suddenly moved to New Zealand (wink, wink!) and now we have access to the Beta from our Australian machines (@Campbell King - Thanks!). It's like running a piece of cat 5 over the side fence to play computer games with your neighbour :)

Sadly we won't be likely to resell such an arrangement to our customers when it finally goes live... but it will help the NZ economy and may give us just cause to annex them in the future (although we'd need to borrow a boat from them to begin the invasion).

Seriously Microsoft - I hope you've got rid of the person who thought this deal with Telstra would be a good thing. Do whatever you have to in order to make it work the same for us as elsewhere in the world. With the roll out of the NBN in Australia, this will be a real option for Australian businesses and you might see a massive take-up ...but if it is locked into Telstra, you can be sure that 60-80% of IT guys in Australia will advise against it.

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I am an Australian MS Partner and was hoping that I could look at the Beta as I have customers I could possibly sell this to. Your agreement with Telstra is hurting my business as I have now lost a competitive edge. Telstra is a hated company here in Australia and the fact that so many people have posted here from Australia should indicate what a bad move this is. Just saying sorry is not fixing the problem and I feel that we need more information then this.

I am guessing that you have signed some stuiped agreement with Telstra and it will cost MS if they break this. If this is the case at least tell us so and how long this stuiped agreement in in place. At least I can explain this to my customers so that I have a fighting chance.

At the moment I am seriously looking at Google and I bet many here are as well. This is only going to hurt you guys because once we leave we will probably never come back. I have already helped one of my customers move to Google this week due to this and to be honest the Google solution is very good and I am also tempted to go this way for myself.

I look forward to your reply with some information explaining why Australia does not have access to this service.

Jonathan, I agree (as per my comments previously), this week I have been looking at moving to Google apps for business.  We are now reviewing our entire IT situation and once complete I expect we will end up with Google being a big part of our business.

Dear Microsoft, When are you actually going to provide some information as to the Australian situation with Office 365.

Yep we get it.  Ballmer did a shitty deal with Telstra and screwed all of us.

But you have to realise that everyone has been burnt by Telstra over time and won't go there, regardless of how good Office 365 may or may not be (who knows - we can't get access to even compare it!).  Over priced, under serviced.  Can't honestly recommend them to anyone for this type of service.

So lay the cards on the table:

- When does the deal with Telstra end?  (or in other words, how long have you locked yourself out of the Australian market by going exclusive with Telstra?)

- What are the ramifications if we sign up for another country and stay there?

How about a little bit more than, "sorry, not currently available".

The Office 365 “Ready for Work” Contest kicked off on April 18 th , where we offered five small businesses the opportunity to win $50,000 each and Office 365 free for a year. Even better, winners get a day with a Microsoft executive , ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work helping their business be successful. In return, we asked to hear:

“ What inspires you to go to work every day, and how can Office 365 help you achieve your business vision in the next 365 days?"

The response has been fantastic, with all types of small businesses sharing their inspirational stories with us! Each week, we entered those submissions into a drawing for a Windows Phone 7. After notifying the winners individually, we wanted to thank them for taking the time to share their story with us.

Company Name

Winner

Kembit BV

Hendrik Bijl

RWS Services .NET

Robin Wilson

ESM Group Inc.

Richard Sherry

Progmic Solutions

Muhammad Sheeraz Aleem

Orlando Trophy Bass

Kevin Przybyl

Addicted to Fitness, Inc.

Jonathan David Bates

Galluzzo & Johnson LLP

Seth Chandler

Stanfield Hiserodt PLLC

Paul Stanfield

Advanced Computer Management Enterprises LLC

James Sheridan Ellsworth

Ability Multimedia

Dianne Michele Bengtson

Coldwell Banker, United Realtors

Heidi Johnson

Q Dell Limited

Jane Cole

Tefnut LTD

Steven Torbet

E-Mage in I.T. Ltd

Boubacar Dembele

Check out the Story Gallery on our Facebook page to read more of these. Submissions end tomorrow, June 18, so share your story today! And stay tuned for the voting period where the chances to win keep coming. Voting between July 15 and August 15, 2011 puts you in the drawing to win a ThinkPad T Series laptop.

Key Upcoming Dates

Jun 18 – Contest is closed for new submissions

Jul 10 - Jul 15 – Winners are announced

Jul 15 - Aug 15 – Community voting to select winners

Sep 6 - Sep 9 – Winners announced ASBDC Conference in San Diego, CA, USA

-Allen, Office 365 Product Manager

Awesome, you can now access the Office 365 trial in Australia, via the Telstra site... oh, wait - it's a 30 day trial of BPOS!

It's very nearly July and, in Australia :-

* It's still going to be $16.95 per user per month

* We, the members of Microsoft's Partner Network, will not be able to resell these services (why did I do the assessment in December!)

* We have no trial available

No wonder all the focus of the local Tech.Ed will be on private clouds!

Wow, its been over 2 months since I last followed this and still no word back from Microsoft to why they did this.

Come on, seriously? Could you not just let us know that you made a mistake by having exclusive rights given to Telstra.

It seriously would have taken a few days to realise that while Telstra may be the largest network in the country, it is nowhere near the best! Where are the exclusive deals in the US, UK or even our much smaller (population and economy) neighbour New Zealand.

This really is unacceptable. Please let us know how long this exclusivity deal lasts for so then I know how long to expect to wait before I will even go near it. When a product costs 2-3 times as much as the US and the internet is involved and a third-party, you know its a very bad deal.

Let us buy from you direct! I am more than happy to pay you in US dollars if required!

It does some clear that Microsoft has effectively abandoned the Australian market (and given the rapidly expanding relationships in the Asia Pacific region proabbly Singpore, Japan, China and South Korea).

While we recognise that this is a very significant mistake for Microsoft, from their out-of-region base in North America it's unlikely they will soon understand.

So not much point in complaining to them - a better bet would be google.com.au

Its really good product ...... :) once its release i will purchase the product compare to other hosting its very secure and helpful for small business....

I am still in the deployment phase.