Microsoft announces Office365: Office 2010 in the cloud

Enterprise Office 2010 hiits the cloud in Microsoft's Office365 service offer

Microsoft has announced Office365, an all-in-one package of Exchange, Lync, SharePoint and Office 2010 applications hosted in the cloud.

The service will launch next year, and will save users between 10 and 50 per cent of their current spend on on-premises licences, according to the company.

Microsoft is already allowing firms to sign up for the beta release, which is available now.

Microsoft Office Division president Kurt DelBene said: “When we launched Office 2010 we knew that delivery on-premises and in the cloud was essential.”

For enterprises the service would offer a single platform for users who would be automatically signed onto Office365 once they logged into their desktop systems.

Users could use the lightweight Office Web Apps, but would also be able to download and run Office 2010 Professional Plus on their desktops as the local client, and save documents to the cloud.

Social networking and team sites would be provided through firms’ SharePoint portal, which could also be hosted by Microsoft.

“Documents would be accessible through desktop PCs, mobile phones, or simply through a browser,” said Microsoft Office Division senior vice-president Chris Capossela.

Users of Exchange email would get 25GB of storage, but unlimited space if they signed up for the email archiving service.

Voice and videoconferencing would be provided through Lync services, and the service would cost between $2 and $27 per user per month, although volume discounts will apply.

Office365 will also be offered to small businesses comprising up to 25 users at a charge of $6 per user per month, backed by a 99.9 per cent service level agreement. This offer also includes a public-facing web site that can be set up quickly with tools and content from its SharePoint portal, as well as team collaboration sites, videoconferencing and access to Office Web Apps.

“We’ve only competed in software sales before, but with Office365, we’ll be able to move into a much larger pool of IT spend,” said Capossela.