Microsoft Unveils Office 365 Beta In 38 Countries Including India.

Microsoft is expanding the the beta version of Office 365 and has made service available in 38 Countries and 17 languages. The company has also launched an application and services storefront called Office 365 Marketplace, which features about 100 applications and 400 professional services from developers and channel partners.

Microsoft Office-365

Since Office 365 is a cloud based service, users can access it from anywhere and at anytime. Microsoft claims that there are some advantages with Office 365. It incorporates Microsoft Office Web applications with an array of web-enabled tools, these tools are easy to learn and put in practice. Also, the tools and the apps won’t require new set of hardware but will work with the existing hardware settings swiftly and will be highly secured.

Microsoft had announced Office 365 in 2010. Now, one might wonder when Office 2010 was selling well, why Microsoft has thought of introducing the new cloud based Office 365. The reason behind it is the success of Google Apps which has been giving Microsoft a hard time. In the closing week of February, a new survey was conducted by a Google Apps reseller, White Stratus, which came up with very important findings — Amongst 2030 companies surveyed, 20 percent used Google Apps and a large number of such companies are big enterprises which have over 10000 employees. These figures indicate that Microsoft has valid reasons to feel worried in the face of Google Apps’ advancement.

Corporate vice president of Microsoft, Kirk Koenigsbauer said, “We’ve been in the cloud for years supporting large enterprises such as Shell and DuPont, but Office 365 takes that same technology power and delivers it to small businesses.” If you ask why the product will suit SMEs, then the answer is, it integrates Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online as cloud based services. Large corporations will seek server based solutions instead, so it’s mostly the small and medium size businesses, which will get benefited.

Microsoft Office-365

When Microsoft is promoting Office 365 as a tool for small businesses, they really meant it. The company has set up a contest which would enable five small businesses to win Office 365, a $50,000 marketing package, and a day’s work from a Microsoft executive at the winner’s business or charity of choice.

Microsoft announced that over time they will add new features into the product. When hundreds of apps and nearly 400 professional services have been made available by 16000 cloud partners in such a short period, adding new features is a matter of time. Microsoft offers the product in two packages — SMEs will go for monthly deal with ‘community support’ and large enterprises will probably buy 24*7 admin support with advanced configuration, based on yearly contract. The minimum cap of subscription price is $6.