Le blog de Laurent

Microsoft Corp. today announced the first major service update for Microsoft Office 365, the company’s next-generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes. The service will also be available to try in 22 additional markets today, including Argentina, Iceland, Indonesia, South Africa and Taiwan.

“We are seeing really positive momentum for Office 365. Customers are adopting Office 365 eight times faster than our previous service, and the solution is on track to become one of our fastest-growing offers in Microsoft history,” said Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft. “We are also seeing great traction with small businesses, with more than 90 percent of our early Office 365 customers coming from small businesses.”

Small Businesses and Big Brands Bet on Office 365

More and more large global companies are choosing Office 365 to enable their employees and customers to work together in the cloud. In fact, more than 40 percent of the global Interbrand list of the 100 top brands use Office 365 or related cloud productivity services from Microsoft. Among the new customers are Campbell Soup Company and Groupe Marie-Claire, which have recently chosen Office 365 to reap the benefits of cloud productivity.

“Office 365 is key to our plans to propel our employees to next-generation innovation in productivity technologies, at a very rapid pace,” said Joe Spagnoletti, senior vice president and chief information officer at Campbell Soup Company. “We’re betting on the cloud — and Office 365 — as we prepare to build a highly collaborative workplace where employees across our global offices can all work together and communicate in a seamless fashion.”

Groupe Marie-Claire, a leading fashion magazine published in more than 30 countries, will use Office 365 to modernize the company’s email and collaboration capabilities, while moving away from a costly and inefficient legacy technology. Employees at Groupe Marie-Claire will be able to access email and share documents on a PC, Mac or various mobile devices with Office 365.

“We thoroughly evaluated other cloud productivity offerings in the market before choosing Microsoft. Office 365 is the right choice to help our company support the way people work today and encourage a more mobile work environment,” said Philippe Chapier, IT manager for Groupe Marie-Claire. “With the service, we have the added benefit of working together with familiar tools on almost any device and can make quicker decisions when needed.”

Rapid Cloud Evolution

Microsoft is also making more than 30 new updates to Office 365 to enhance collaboration and communication, and for SkyDrive, adding simple app-centric sharing for Office, powerful file management and easier uploads with HTML5 based largely on customer feedback. Key new features and enhancements include the following:

Support for Lync for Mac. Mac users can now use instant messaging, presence and videoconferencing through Office 365.

New SharePoint Business Connectivity Services, which allow people to connect to information in their company’s critical line-of-business applications, such as customer relationship management or SAP software.

Support for Windows Phone 7.5. Starting today, people can access and update documents in SharePoint Online from anywhere using their Windows Phone.

SkyDrive gets simpler app-centric sharing for Office, powerful file management and easier uploads with HTML5. Share any Office document in one click. Work together more easily with any contact — across email services and connected networks such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Powerful tools to manage and organize files quickly. Drag and drop multiple files to upload across browsers on PC and Mac.

“Today’s news illustrates how we’re executing like never before in the cloud with more customers, capabilities and commitment than anyone in the industry. All this while others search for their focus,” said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Division.

Source : bink.nu

This week marks the beta release of the highly anticipated Microsoft Office 365 Integration Module (OIM) for Small Business Server 2011 Essentials. The OIM allows small businesses to seamlessly combine the cloud-based productivity tools of Office 365 with the infrastructure provided by SBS 2011 Essentials, a first-server designed and priced especially for small businesses with limited in-house IT resources. The joint technologies provide businesses with an affordable hybrid solution that helps protect data, organize and provide access to business information from virtually anywhere, and support the applications that enable the business to run smoothly and efficiently.

The Office 365 Integration Module joins the Windows® 7 Professional Pack for Small Business Server 2011 and the Windows® Server Solutions Phone Connector Add-in to help provide a flexible, comprehensive, and powerful solution for small businesses. If you are currently taking advantage of either SBS 2011 Essentials or Office 365, we encourage you to use this opportunity to experience the collective benefits of both products. Get ready today by downloading the Office 365 Integration Module Beta and discover how SBS 2011 Essentials and Office 365 work better together to help improve productivity and business efficiency.

The Office 365 Integration Module for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials extends the features of the server Dashboard by providing seamless integration with Office 365 services. When you integrate Office 365 with the server, you can:

• Subscribe to Office 365 or configure the server to use an existing subscription.
• Perform the following Office 365 account management tasks from the Dashboard:
  • Bulk create Office 365 accounts for network user accounts.
  • Assign new or existing Office 365 accounts to network user accounts.
  • Manage the Office 365 account assigned to a user account throughout the lifecycle of the user account. For example, deactivating a network user account also deactivates the Office 365 account that is assigned to the user account.
• Synchronize passwords for network user accounts and Office 365 accounts. This allows network users to sign in to Office 365 using their Windows password.
• Link a professional Internet domain that you have set up on Window SBS to Office 365.
• View information about your Office 365 subscription.
• Access your Office 365 management portal from the Office 365 page of the server Dashboard.

You can install and configure the Office 365 Integration Module at any time after completing the server installation.

Office 365 helps drive productivity by giving employees virtually anywhere access to professional-grade email, web conferencing tools, documents, shared portals, contacts, and calendars delivered through the cloud. At a glance, Office 365 includes (click here for more details):

• Microsoft^® Exchange Online, offering email, calendar and contacts
• Microsoft^® SharePoint Online, a central place to share documents and information
• Microsoft^® Lync Online, a next-generation cloud communications service
• Microsoft^® Office Web Apps, convenient online companions to the Microsoft^® Office suite

The solution allows companies to use the productivity tools they need while eliminating the complexity, management, and maintenance requirements of in-house messaging infrastructure. Small businesses can now combine the power of an on-premise server solution and the flexibility and convenience of cloud-based applications to help improve productivity, enhance collaboration and communication, and keep business data safe and secure.

If you’re not familiar with the benefits of SBS 2011 Essentials and the Office 365 Integration Module, let me share with you some compelling advantages for small businesses:

Get More Done – SBS 2011 Essentials and the Office 365 help small businesses employees who are always on the move that need readily accessible information and applications to service their customers or make the next sale. Office 365 enables workers to increase productivity from virtually anywhere by allowing real-time access to information and tools from a variety of devices and platforms.

Enjoy a Simplified, Flexible Solution – Small businesses are typically limited by a lack of experience and resources dedicated to in-house IT systems. Together, SBS 2011 Essentials and Office 365 offer enhanced flexibility and help reduce IT complexity with a seamless combination of comprehensive server functionality and cloud-based productivity tools that make it easy for people to connect and work together.

Help Safeguard Work – Every smart business takes precautions when it comes to safeguarding its work. Office 365 helps maintain a dependable and secure data environment allowing small businesses to rest assured knowing important business data stored in SharePoint Online is protected from loss or theft and kept safe with advanced security and reliability features.

In addition to these benefits, the Office 365 Integration Module also enables small businesses to easily administer both local and cloud users in one single place, such as adding all SBS user accounts into Office 365 and using a single custom domain name for both SBS 2011 Essentials and Office 365.

Source : http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs