What a week of Office 365 wins!

It's been an exciting week, with new additions to the Office 365 family. These organizations are at the cutting edge of education and event planning - and were looking for a way to enhance their productivity and collaboration capabilities. The new customers include:

The Catholic International Education Office (OIEC)

The Catholic International Education Office (OIEC) has entered into an education alliance with Microsoft, to provide Office 365 for its community of Catholic schools across the world. Office 365 will form the foundation of the OIEC's new Social Network for Catholic Education, which will begin with the provision of software for 4.5 million students as part of a three-year alliance plan.

The Social Network for Catholic Education will provide a space for collaboration, communication and knowledge sharing. In time, the network and alliance has the potential to scale across OIEC's community of more than 43 million Catholic students, at 210,000 schools in 102 countries. The new network will also provide innovative software and services, training and access, to technologies that will better prepare students for the jobs of the future.

Working with Microsoft, OIEC will now be able to offer the most advanced technology, knowledge and skills to schools - using cloud-based Office 365 tools including instant messaging and video conferencing, with the ability to take part in virtual classes, create and maintain websites, share calendars, work together on projects in real time, and transform any conversation with high-resolution video, application and desktop sharing.

Over on the Official Microsoft Blog, Anthony Salcito, Microsoft's vice president of worldwide education, provides his perspective on today's news.  

Office 365 for education will be available this summer. More details and signup information can be found here.

iLUKA

Office 365 is now also the cloud solution of choice for iLUKA, an events and hospitality firm based in the UK. The firm develops and delivers coordinated activities for its banking, oil, and pharmaceutical clients at global sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup.

Right now, the firm is preparing for the London 2012 Olympic Games - and will hire hundreds more temporary employees for the big event. iLUKA needs a cloud solution to provide its employees with access to email, along with the ability to work on documents using Microsoft Office applications from virtually anywhere during the games. Office 365 is just that solution!

Instead of purchasing conventional software licenses for the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games, the firm will quickly expand its on-premise email servers using Office 365, to cope with greatly increased levels of traffic during the event, and to supply secure and reliable service to clients during the Games.

For the duration of the Games, each iLUKA employee will have Office 365 email and Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. The company will be able to add hundreds of users as needed, and pay for the service on a per-user, per-month basis - providing flexibility and the ability to delete 'extra' temporary accounts after the Games are over.

The company also uses Microsoft Lync 2010 and the Active Directory service, running on the company's own servers. With the reputation, technology, and commitment of Microsoft, iLUKA is able to meet its clients' IT standards. Bring on the Games!

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--Stephen Bury

See how customers are using Office 365 here.

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