Office in the Cloud: What's in it for you?

The time is right for Office to expand its horizons-- to the cloud. Office 365  adds the Web versions of your favorite Office 2010 applications and the server side of the equation: Exchange Online for managing email and calendars, SharePoint Online for websites and collaboration, and Lync Online for real-time communications such as online meetings and video conferencing. The server applications, which may be cost-prohibitive for a small business to manage on their own, bring Office to a whole new level. That’s why more than 200,000 organizations tested the service during the beta period, and many are already seeing cost savings of up to 50 percent.

I'm going to take off my marketing hat for a minute and tell you what I think is especially cool about Office 365. Here are a few examples:

• Instead of worrying about version control and security, don't send attachments. Send a link by email to a SharePoint site where your colleague can access the latest version of the document.
• In Office applications you can see which colleagues are present.  This tells you whether you should call, IM, or email your contacts, or if they’re unavailable.
• Work on the same Word document with multiple people at the same time. You know when someone else is reviewing a document and can see their changes in real-time, without worrying about losing versions or information.
• Share calendars with team members and access email and calendars on virtually all the devices you use.

Our customers are seeing instant value in Office 365, as well.
I love hearing how Office 365 is helping small companies. For example:

Bea’s Insurance Agency, a small firm in East Palestine, Ohio, is using Office 365 for email, shared calendars, document workspaces, collaboration and instant messaging -- all for the same cost it used to spend on just email. "We are getting big-business tools at a small-business expense," says Jeff Stewart, one of the owners.

Travelers Haven, which provides temporary and corporate housing in all 50 states, will avoid roughly $100,000 in hardware, maintenance, software, and the cost of a staff IT person, with Office 365, says Elia Wallen, the company’s president. She also predicts that the service will save about 30 extra hours every day, companywide, by making it easier for employees to find information and connect with colleagues. “That’s like having three more people in the office," she remarks.

Wallen is particularly excited about using Lync Online for real-time communications. “I bet we send more than 1,000 instant messages a day," she says. "It’s much more effective than sending a bunch of emails, and it’s amazing to be able to click a button and move an instant messaging conversation to a video call.”

We’re making it far easier for any size business to gain all the productivity tools they need, accessible anytime from the Web.  You can check out Office 365 free for 30 days at office365.com.
Let me know what you think!

--Takeshi Numoto, Corporate Vice President, Office