Microsoft Online Services

 

Microsoft earlier this week unveiled in Houston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Microsoft Online Services. This new service offering provides “deskless worker” tools for productivity for telecommuting, which many employers and workers increasingly favour.

This offering includes hosted Exchange, Sharepoint, Communication Server and Dynamics CRM hosted by Microsoft as part of the new online service platform.

The pricing model as shown above for $15 per month per person, the business productivity suite offers an Outlook-integrated Exchange Online for e-mail and calendars, Office SharePoint Online collaboration, messaging via Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting video-enabled Web conferencing.

The Deskless Work suite is offered for additional $3 per month per user which combines flavors of SharePoint Online and Exchange Online. The SharePoint portal offers access to internal company sites and search. E-mail, calendars, security filters, and Outlook Web Access Light are included with Exchange Online Deskless Worker.

There has been a tremendous amount of interest and adoption of Microsoft Online Services. In just the past year, Microsoft has sold more than a half million seats for Microsoft Online Services. To help businesses plan, deploy and operate the services, Microsoft is releasing new Microsoft Solution Accelerators for Microsoft Online Services. These include new automated tools and guidance, such as the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, the Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide and the Microsoft Operations Framework Companion Guide.  More information about Microsoft Solution Accelerators for Microsoft Online Services can be found here.

This is another exciting announcement as part of our Software + Services strategy, where Microsoft Online Services will continue to make available “finished services” on our Windows Azure Services Platform