It’s certainly exciting times for Lync Online right now.
http://lynconline.pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-us/applications/jajah-voice-for-office-365-12884930736
Check out the Lync Online Market place to read up on Jajah – a program running in beta right now that enables users to call mobile phones and landlines directly within the Lync Online Solution.
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2012/03/14/new-lower-prices-for-office-365.aspx
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/250524/microsoft_is_building_a_new_datacenter_in_dublin.html
Interesting views today in the media around Google's new Privacy Policies
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16720406
http://gizmodo.com/5878987/its-official-google-is-evil-now
http://office365feblondon.eventbrite.com/
http://community.office365.com/en-us/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2012/01/09/office-365-new-capabilities-for-kiosk-workers.aspx
These new capabilities include:
See live demos, overviews of the platform and how-to videos!!!
http://www.youtube.com/user/MicrosoftOffice365
http://community.office365.com/en-us/w/office_365_service_updates/service-updates-for-office-365-for-enterprises.aspx
I’ve highlighted my favourites and the ones that are most popular with customers below.
November
Office 365 Global Expansion: 22 New Countries Office 365 trials are available in 22 new countries: Argentina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Iceland, Indonesia, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and UAE.
Office 365 Global Expansion: Russia and Korea Previously only available through enterprise agreements or our syndication partners, Office 365 trials and commerce are now available directly in both Russia and Korea.
Admin self-serve password reset Administrators now have the ability to reset their own password through text (SMS) message and an alternate email address. For the administrator password reset to work, you must have already provided a phone number on which you can receive a text (SMS) message and an alternate email address. The email address must not be your Office 365 email address, because if you can’t sign in to your Office 365 account, you can’t retrieve email sent to that address. Enter this information in the user management area. To get there, click Admin, and under Management, click Users. On the Settings tab, enter the email address in the Alternate email address box. On the Properties tab, enter the mobile phone number in the Mobile phone box.
Additional Information:
Learn more about this feature by reading the blog post What was that password?
For enterprises, see Reset an administrator's password
For professionals and small businesses, see Reset an administrator's password
Source of authority transfer This update allows Office 365 administrators to deactivate and reactivate dirsync to switch between managing their users’ master source of information on-premises or in the cloud. Previously, when customers used the Office 365 migration wizard to activate dirsync to synchronize user data with the cloud, they could not revert to managing user data with on-premises Active Directory without calling support.
Additional Information: Learn more about changing the source of authority by reading the article Directory synchronization and source of authority
Lync client for Mac Customers who own Office for Mac 2011 Standard and have usage rights for Lync for Mac 2011 now have the ability to download Lync for Mac from the download section of Office 365. Lync for Mac 2011 enables Mac users to see their colleagues’ online presence while working in Outlook or collaborating on Office documents. It enables them to quickly send an instant message, start a video chat, or schedule an Online Meeting right from within Outlook for Mac 2011.
Additional Information: Learn more about Lync for Mac licensing here See the blog announcement Mac Users: Download Lync for Mac 2011 Today
Mac unified downloads page A unified downloads page is now available to give Mac users a single location to download Office for Mac desktop setup configuration software and Lync for Mac 2011. To get these downloads, log into your Office 365 account and visit the download section.
Additional Information: To learn more about how to set up your Mac for Office 365, see Set up your Mac for Office 365 for professionals and small businesses, or Set up your Mac for Office 365 for enterprises.
Official support for OS X Lion added We have added to Office 365 official support for the OS X Lion operating system.
Improvements to the “Add a Domain” experience We have improved the ‘Add a Domain’ user experience by clarifying the domain re-delegation process and providing in-context links to relevant Help articles.
Additional Information: To learn more about adding your domain to Office 365, see Add your domain to Office 365 - Office 365 for enterprises or Add your domain to Office 365 - Office 365 for professionals and small businesses
Client access control improvements We have made improvements to client access controls provides Office 365 administrators with the ability to block external access to Office 365 based on the IP address of the external client. This blocks all external access to Office 365 except Exchange Active Sync; all other clients such as Outlook are blocked. It also blocks all external access to Office 365 except for passive browser based applications such as Outlook Web Access or SharePoint Online.
Read the Microsoft TechNet article here
Read the support help article here For more information about AD FS 2.0 RTW, visit the following Microsoft website: General information about AD FS 2.0 RTW
Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support The 64-bit version of the directory synchronization tool is now available for our enterprise customers. The 64-bit version now uses Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 as the underlying synchronization engine. FIM is installed silently when you run Setup. The 64-bit version of the directory synchronization tool shares exact functional parity* with the existing 32-bit software. Therefore, refer to the existing directory synchronization documentation for all other deployment and configuration information. *Note: Multi-forest Active Directory is not supported.
More details, including the upgrade path from the 32-bit version, can be found in the wiki post, Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support. View additional directory synchronization information here
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Troubleshooting support tool The new Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Troubleshooting support tool is a comprehensive, self-help solution that helps customers solve questions or issues they may have with the Office 365 suite of services. The Office 365 DIY Troubleshooting Support Tool is free and available in the "Troubleshooting" section of http://community.office365.com. The Troubleshooter pinpoints key technical support issues and provides immediate solutions so customers do not have to post questions to the community or submit a support request ticket. The tool’s interface displays hundreds of possible help and support Office 365 assets (i.e., help topics, articles, videos, wikis, blog posts, etc.). As you move through a list of troubleshooting options, the tool dynamically displays funneled-down content to lead you towards the answers you need.
Read the Support Made Simple blog announcement
Use the DIY Troubleshooting Tool now
SharePoint Online access for external users via a Windows Live ID Microsoft is helping to support the many scenarios in which you work with others, particularly those who are not part of your company, such as vendors, trusted business partners, customers, and clients. . Windows LiveID support adds external sharing capabilities in SharePoint Online enabling companies to invite external users in to view, share, and collaborate on their sites. The feature is turned off by default, but a company’s SharePoint Online Administrator can enable external sharing for the whole company. Then each individual site collection owners can decide if they wish to share externally. Every Office 365 SharePoint Online customer, at the tenant level, (not per subscription) includes 50 Partner Access Licenses (PALs) that can be used for external sharing. Customers are not currently required to obtain additional PALs for external sharing beyond 50 users and can have up to a maximum of 1,000 PALs until the next major update of the Office 365 service at which time Microsoft may choose to make it available as a paid add-on. Note: Microsoft supports invited external users signing in to the service using a Microsoft Online Services ID and/or a Windows Live ID, which includes @Live.com, @Hotmail.com and @MSN.com user names, plus regional derivations of LiveID user names.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read Share a Site with External Users for midsize businesses and enterprises or Share the Team Site with External Users for professionals and small businesses
SharePoint Online addition of Business Connectivity Services (BCS) via WCF endpoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint Online enables customers to connect to external data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints in both read and write modes. These datasources are often line-of-business (LoB) applications that sit behind customer firewalls, or are being transitioned to the cloud, like SQL Azure. SharePoint will support external lists and data columns, the Business Data Catalogue (BDC) service for WCF connectors and the Secure Store Service partitioned at the customer SharePoint Online Administration Center (at the tenant level). Currently, there are some components of BCS that are not supported, including external data search, rich client integration, profile pages, and direct connectivity to SQL Azure without a WCF endpoint.
Additional Information: For all the new rich documentation on BCS within SharePoint Online, please visit the SharePoint Online Developer Resource Center. To learn more read Introduction to Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint Online or What's New for BCS in SharePoint Online
SharePoint Online improved ability to recover SharePoint site collections Enterprise customers now have the ability to restore full sub sites. As a result, they no longer need to contact Office 365 support to request restoration.
SharePoint Online support for IE 9 and Chrome In addition to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, SharePoint Online now officially supports Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. Just launch your favorite browser and then visit your favorite SharePoint Online team site or intranet company site, use work with the Office Web Apps, and more.,
Office 365 Global Expansion: Brazil Office 365 trials and commerce are available Brazil as of November 8, 2011.
Office 365 Global Expansion: New language support We have added new language support for Portuguese-Portuguese.
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/24419-google-pulls-gmail-app-from/
Office 365 story with Blackberry
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/saas/2011/11/07/blackberry-business-cloud-services-for-office-365-40094370/
Office 365 story with Windows Phone 7
http://blogs.technet.com/b/jocarpenter/archive/2011/10/29/customer-examples-of-windows-phone-7-working-with-office-365-exchange-online-lync-online-sharepoint-online-and-office.aspx
Active Sync Client support with Exchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Exchange_ActiveSync_Clients
Setting up mobile phones in Office 365
http://community.office365.com/en-us/b/office_365_technical_blog/archive/2011/11/07/service-availability-in-office-365.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/document-collaboration-and-co-authoring-HA101812148.aspx
You can package it up and deploy using SCCM or another software distribution product. In short you would download the .exe, extract it then package as normal. Or you can read the Technet article http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg998766.aspx to get the real steps.
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-cloud.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=5102ce67-9e4a-4666-809f-1c15b17d2aa9
http://www.microsoft.com/office/vision/
Is the Windows Phone 7 Mango a work phone or a consumer phone???
As an employee that uses it as a work phone and a consumer that uses it as a personal phone, I can honestly say that it acts as both for me.
This post is all about showcasing what makes it a great work phone for me.
Number 1)
The phone supports multiple applications being open, so you can easily copy content from one application e.g email and then paste it into another e.g a PowerPoint slide
You can customise the front screen tiles in anyway that you like. As you can see below, I have customised my front screen to include the things I use most.
- My ‘Inbox Tile’ so I can easily access my email hosted on Exchange Online, - The ‘Lync Tile’ so that i can easily access my Instant Messenger account hosted on Lync Online, - The ‘Calendar Tile’ so I can see where my next meeting is going to be – including time and location - The ‘Office Hub Tile’ so I can easily open up Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and Excel Documents, - The ‘IE Explorer Tile’ so I can browse online, - The ‘Maps Tile’ so I can easily find out my location, - One of my fav Apps when I’m in London. The ‘Bing Get Me There - App Tile’ so I can check on the status of the London Tubes.
- My ‘Inbox Tile’ so I can easily access my email hosted on Exchange Online,
- The ‘Lync Tile’ so that i can easily access my Instant Messenger account hosted on Lync Online,
- The ‘Calendar Tile’ so I can see where my next meeting is going to be – including time and location
- The ‘Office Hub Tile’ so I can easily open up Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and Excel Documents,
- The ‘IE Explorer Tile’ so I can browse online,
- The ‘Maps Tile’ so I can easily find out my location,
- One of my fav Apps when I’m in London. The ‘Bing Get Me There - App Tile’ so I can check on the status of the London Tubes.
Number 2)
Look inside the Inbox – easy to read email, choice of sync options, multi-message support, highlights emails with attachments, usual reply options to both email and calendar invitations.
Great multi-folder search option, but if you can’t find the email that you are looking for, you can also search the server. Great for locating that one email you wish you still had on your phone.
Number 3)
Use the Office Hub to Access your collaboration sites and download documents from SharePoint Online within Office 365.
Go into your Intranet Site hosted within SharePoint Online
Number 4)
Download a document such as PowerPoint Deck and preview the slides within the Office Hub, use the touch screen technology to slide easily to the next slide. Make easy edits to the document and save back to your SharePoint Online Library.
Number 5)
Use Lync Online to see your colleagues presence and use Instant Messenger for easy collaboration when you are on the move.
Hopefully that helps to give you an idea about how easy it is to use your Windows Phone as a work phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBKIWB1rB0Y&feature=player_embedded
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rim-announces-blackberry-business-cloud-services-for-microsoft-office-365-2011-10-25-84290?reflink=MW_news_stmp
RIM Announces BlackBerry Business Cloud Beta Services for Microsoft Office 365
Case study: UK-based firm G4S adopts Azure cloud platform for critical cash security application
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/10/17/248177/Case-study-UK-based-firm-adopts-Azure-cloud-platform-for-critical-cash-security.htm
Worth looking at E3 in detail – it comes with Office + Exchange Plan 2 and SharePoint Plan 2 and Lync Plan 2 – THAT MEANS YOU GET LOADS OF GREAT STUFF!!!!
Including an Unlimited Personal Archive, Voicemail Integration and the ability to do Legal Hold in your Mail box
It also has all the good stuff in SharePoint Plan 2 including Build & View Embedded Excel Graphs, create and publish eForms etc
Lync plan 2 will let you run voice and video web conferences for us to 250 people!!!
Rather than referencing a load of case studies that speak for themselves. Let me show you some of the cool things you can expect from going with Exchange Online:
Exchange Online Plan 1 includes access to Outlook Web Apps. This application is ideal for online users that do not need full Outlook Client functionality and do not have access to Office/Outlook on their desktop. The experience is designed to look and feel exactly like Outlook.
The diagram below highlights the rich user experience the user will get from OWA and also highlights the seamless integration with Lync if you have it deployed.
If there are instances where Personal Assistance’s require delegate access to a mailbox, then this can also be supported with Outlook and Exchange Online. See diagram below.
If management and control is a key requirement, then the Role Based Access Controls within Exchange Online really help you to manage and maintain the email environment.
Enterprise class calendar sharing
Included in the cost is our Anti-Spam, Anti-virus protection.
Remote Power Shell – everyone loves a little bit of script. Are you up for making your life much easier. We all love the good old says of Batch Files – well now we have Power Shell.
Finally - Check out Exchange Plan 1 under the standalone service on the cost estimator here: http://www.microsoft.com/online/office365tools/estimator/cost-estimator.aspx?culture=en-gb&data=gb
Prices per user per month.
So you could have Exchange Online for £39.00 per user per year. Wowserrrs I hear you say!!! The story only gets better when you add the wonderful suite of technologies that sit around it.
Check out Lync and SharePoint!!!
Take a look for yourself – Download the Exchange Online Service Description here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=13602
I get the opportunity to speak to a lot of Marketing Directors within our Microsoft customer base and a common request that I hear is…… “we’d really like a simple way to setup a new Intranet which looks great, but enables collaboration, web 2.0 functionality (blogs, wikis, rss feeds, comments), eForms, Business Intelligence, workflow and we’d like it now!!!”
Well…. now you can. Why not ask your Microsoft Partners about SharePoint Online within Office 365?
You can have great look & feel Intranet sites setup in no time at all. See below for our Fabrikam demo site.
Agenda Guide
09:00-9:30 Registration & Coffee
09:30-10:15 Understand Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy
10:15-11:00 Is Office 365 right for you and your business?
11:00-11:20 Coffee Break
11:20-11:40 Why SharePoint will add value to your EA?
11:40–12:10 Realising the business benefits of SharePoint Online?
12:10–12:30 Case Study
12:30–12:45 CSP offer and Call to Action
12:45 -1:00 Questions
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-Exchange-Online/Scripps-Networks-Interactive/Company-Improves-Communications-and-IT-Administration-with-Upgrade-to-Hosted-Solution/4000010359
Organization Size: 2000 employees
Organization Profile
Scripps Networks Interactive is a leading developer of lifestyle-oriented content for television and the Internet, including brands like Food Network, Travel Channel, BizRate, Shopzilla, and Beso.
Business Situation
With its messaging solution hosted by Microsoft, the company wanted to learn more about Microsoft Office 365 as it prepared to transition to the next generation of cloud based services.
Solution
The company joined the Microsoft Office 365 Rapid Deployment Program to test new administrative controls in Office 365, in addition to new messaging and communications capabilities enabled by Office 365 and Office 2010.
Benefits
Software and Services