Microsoft Online Services Team Blog

PowerShell Updates to Retrieve Distribution Groups, Update User Addresses, and More

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 23:00:00 GMT

Written by Divya Gunasekaran, Microsoft Online Services PM

The latest release of the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools includes two new cmdlets and an update to Get-MSOnlineUser. The new Get-MSOnlineDistributionGroup cmdlet allows admins to retrieve properties of distribution groups through PowerShell, and a user’s UPN, primary SMTP address, and SIP address can now be managed using the Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses cmdlet.

1. Get-MSOnlineUser: This cmdlet retrieves the properties of a specified user in Microsoft Online Services. The following property has been added to the output of this cmdlet:

RulesQuota: Returns the limit in KB for the size of rules for the user’s mailbox. This property will return 0 for users that do not have mailboxes.

2. Get-MSOnlineDistributionGroup: This cmdlet retrieves the properties of a specified distribution group. The following properties are output:

Identity: Primary SMTP address of the group.
DisplayName: The display name of the group.
Type: The group type.
AcceptMessagesOnlyFrom: Returns a string array containing the users and contacts allowed to send email to the retrieved distribution group. An empty array indicates the distribution group accepts messages from all senders.
Members: Returns a string array containing the members of the distribution group.

3. Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses: This cmdlet can be used to update a user’s primary SMTP address and SIP address to match their existing UPN or a new UPN. For mailbox users, if an existing SMTP address matches the UPN, Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses will set it as the primary SMTP. Otherwise, the cmdlet will add a new SMTP address as the primary email address. Note that this cmdlet does not remove or replace a user’s existing SMTP addresses. For users with an existing SIP address, Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses will update the SIP address to match the UPN.

Let’s run through a few scenarios to get started.

I want to ensure my users’ UPN, primary SMTP address, and SIP address are aligned. After running the Get-MSOnlineUser cmdlet, I notice that the addresses for karthik@fineartschool.net are not the same as his UPN.

C:\PS>Get-MSOnlineUser -Identity karthik@fineartschool.net -
Credential $companyAdminCred

Identity                : karthik@fineartschool.net

ProxyAddresses     : {SMTP:k@fineartschool.net,
smtp:karthik@fineartschool.net, sip:ka@fineartschool.net}

To update the primary SMTP address and SIP address to equal my user’s current UPN, karthik@fineartschool.net, I run the following command:

C:\PS>Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses -Identity
karthik@fineartschool.net -Credential $companyAdminCred

When I check the user’s address list again, I see that the SIP address was updated and the SMTP address that matched the UPN is now set as the primary SMTP address. No SMTP addresses were removed or replaced.

Identity : karthik@fineartschool.net
ProxyAddresses : {smtp:k@fineartschool.net,
SMTP:karthik@fineartschool.net, sip:karthik@fineartschool.net}

My user has recently undergone a name change from Chris to Christine. Her UPN, SMTP address, and SIP address are Chris@fineartschool.net, and I need to update them accordingly.

Identity : Chris@fineartschool.net
ProxyAddresses : {SMTP:Chris@fineartschool.net, sip:Chris@fineartschool.net}

I can do this from the command line, but I can also import information from a csv file since the Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses cmdlet accepts some input from the pipeline by property name. I save the below csv file as “NameChange.csv” and run the following command:

Identity	NewUpn
Chris@fineartschool.net	Christine@fineartschool.net

C:\PS>Import-Csv –path C:\NameChange.csv | Update-
MSOnlineUserAddresses -Credential $companyAdminCred

My user’s UPN, primary SMTP address, and SIP address are now updated to Christine@fineartschool.net. The old SMTP address Chris@fineartschool.net is still an alternate email address because the Update-MSOnlineUserAddresses cmdlet does not remove or replace SMTP addresses. That means Christine will still receive mail sent to Chris@fineartschool.net, which is useful because her contacts might not know she has a new primary email address.

Identity : Christine@fineartschool.net
ProxyAddresses : {SMTP:Christine@fineartschool.net,
smtp:Chris@fineartschool.net, sip:Christine@fineartschool.net

To use the updated cmdlets, admins must download the latest 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools.

Manage Client Access Settings through PowerShell

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:54:00 GMT

Written by Divya Gunasekaran, Microsoft Online Services PM

Admins can now manage client access settings for their Microsoft Online users through PowerShell. Updates to Get-MSOnlineUser and the new Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox cmdlet allow admins to specify whether Exchange ActiveSync or Outlook Web App (OWA) is enabled for users.

1. Get-MSOnlineUser: This cmdlet can be used to retrieve the properties of a specified user in Microsoft Online Services. Three properties have been added to the output of this cmdlet:

ActiveSyncEnabled: Returns a Boolean indicating whether ActiveSync is enabled for a user’s mailbox. This property will return False for users that do not have mailboxes.
OWAEnabled: Returns a Boolean indicating whether Outlook Web App is enabled for a user’s mailbox. This property will return False for users that do not have mailboxes.
POPEnabled: Returns a Boolean indicating whether POP3 access is enabled for a user’s mailbox. This property will return False for users that do not have mailboxes.

2. Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox: This cmdlet can be used to enable or disable ActiveSync or Outlook Web App for a user’s mailbox.

Admins can specify from the command line whether to enable Exchange ActiveSync or OWA for a user mailbox. For example, the following command can be run to disable ActiveSync and enable Outlook Web App for the user alexei@tailspintoys.com:

C:\PS>Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox -Identity alexei@tailspintoys.com -Credential $companyAdminCred -ActiveSyncEnabled False -OWAEnabled True

The Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox also accepts some input from the pipeline by property name. One use for this functionality is to run the cmdlet on information imported from a csv file. For example, let’s say we want to enable both ActiveSync and OWA for the user alexei@tailspintoys.com and to enable ActiveSync and disable OWA for the user pavel@tailspintoys.com. The admin would create a csv file (named “CASmailboxes.csv” in this example) and run the following command:

Identity	ActiveSyncEnabled	OWAEnabled
alexei@tailspintoys.com	True	True
pavel@tailspintoys.com	True	False

C:\PS>Import-Csv –path C:\CASmailboxes.csv | Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox -Credential $companyAdminCred

Please note that the Set-MSOnlineCASMailbox cmdlet does not modify or remove the ActiveSync policy currently assigned to a user’s mailbox. If an ActiveSync policy has been assigned to a user mailbox and ActiveSync is then disabled, the same policy will be applied after ActiveSync has been re-enabled for that user. If no ActiveSync policy has been assigned to the user mailbox, the default policy will be applied when ActiveSync is enabled.

To use the updated cmdlets, admins must download the latest 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools.

2 PowerShell Cmdlet Updates

JoshT_MSFT — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Written by Divya Gunasekaran, Microsoft Online Services PM

Updates to two existing PowerShell cmdlets are now available to use with Microsoft Online Services. The updates to Get-MSOnlineUser and Set-MSOnlineUserPassword give admins more visibility into password and alternate recipient settings, and more control over password expiration.

1. Get-MSOnlineUser: This cmdlet can be used to retrieve the properties of a specified user in Microsoft Online Services. Three properties have been added to the output of this cmdlet:

PasswordLastSetDate: Returns the date that a user last set their password. If a user is set to change their password on next logon, the default date of “1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM” will be returned.
ForwardingAddress: Displays the forwarding address (a.k.a. alternate recipient) that has been set for a user’s mailbox. If no forwarding address has been set, an empty string array will be returned.
DeliverToMailboxAndForward: Returns a Boolean indicating where messages are being delivered when a forwarding address has been set.

If a forwarding address has been set and messages are being delivered only to the forwarding address, this property will return False.
If a forwarding address has been set and messages are being delivered to both the user’s mailbox and the forwarding address, this property will return True.

2. Set-MSOnlineUserPassword: The Set-MSOnlineUserPassword cmdlet has been updated to make the “Password” parameter optional. This ability allows admins to force users to change their passwords after logging in with their current credentials, rather than having to first assign new passwords to the users. Admins can also continue to use the cmdlet as they did before to set a user’s password to a specified value and optionally require them to change their password on next logon. Please note that requiring a user to change their password on next logon will reset the “PasswordNeverExpire” setting to False for that user.

To use the updated cmdlets, admins must download the latest 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools.

Frequent Questions about the Transition to Office 365

Michael O'Neill — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 05:00:00 GMT

There are a lot of questions regarding the upcoming transition from Business Productivity Online Suite to Microsoft Office 365, and we want you to know we’re listening.

You can find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions by downloading the transition FAQ, but take a look below as we highlight some of the more pressing questions and concerns. From watching blog comments, forum discussions, and feedback from our customers, here are a few specific questions you’ve been asking:

Q. Will I have to pay more for Office 365?

No. Office 365 will not change anything related to your subscription pricing or renewal date, with three exceptions:

The SharePoint Online Deskless Worker offering will be phased out. Microsoft will contact all customers who are subscribed to the SharePoint Online Deskless Worker and offer them Office 365 Kiosk—which includes both SharePoint and Exchange—for the same price.
The Live Meeting Standalone service will be replaced with a Lync service including both conferencing and instant messaging.
The Extra Storage offerings will be offered for free to all customers.

Q. What has changed between the current BPOS system requirements and the new system requirements of Office 365?

The key changes in system requirements are:

Office 2003 is not supported
Office Communicator 2007 R2 with Office Communications Online will no longer be supported
Internet Explorer 6 will no longer be supported

Q. How can I make sure Microsoft can communicate with me about my transition?

For each subscription that a customer has, make sure that contact details for both the “Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” are up-to-date.

“Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” can be checked at the Microsoft Online Customer Portal (https://mocp.microsoftonline.com) by clicking the “Subscriptions” tab and “View Subscription Details” in the
“Actions” column
Make sure that the email accounts specified for “Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” are monitored regularly.
Make sure that the domain “@email.microsoftonline.com” is marked as safe, to prevent the possibility of communications from Microsoft Online Services being blocked or filtered.

Manual Migration from BPOS to Office 365

Michael O'Neill — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 03:58:00 GMT

The BPOS to Office 365 transition process is underway. If you haven’t already received notification about your transition, expect to hear from us in the coming weeks and months.

We are taking a diligent approach to moving our valued BPOS customers to Office 365. This approach includes safeguards to help ensure the transition is as smooth as possible. Some customers using the approach outlined below are encountering difficulties; we advise against attempting the transition on your own. Rather, we recommend you work with us on your transition.

We are here to help make your transition from BPOS to Office 365 a success. If you have any questions, visit the Transition Center (www.bpostransition.com). If you still have questions contact our support team.

The Transition Window: September 2011 to September 2012

Michael O'Neill — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:31:00 GMT

Now that Office 365 has launched, we’re preparing to start transitions in September 2011, and we’ve updated the Transition Guide and Transition FAQ to provide you more information about what to expect between now and September 2012.

Here’s a summary of the key actions you should take.

1) Review the transition guide.

This comprehensive overview covers all aspects of the transition process. Download the transition guide for in-depth information on everything from system requirements to the specific steps required for administrators and current users.

2) Learn the key changes.

Some of these system requirements may require you to upgrade your PCs before you transition. Make sure your business is ready for Office 365 and the new Microsoft Online Services by noting the following key changes:

Outlook 2003 / Office 2003 is not supported
Internet Explorer 6 is not supported
Office Communicator 2007 R2 must be upgraded to Microsoft Lync
Office 365 Desktop Setup is required (replaces the Sign-In Application)

Review all of the Office 365 and Microsoft Online Services system requirements. In addition, make sure all your desktops are up to date for the necessary end-user requirements. You can find this information in the transition checklist for administrators.

3) Understand the Office 365 password policy

To make the transition to Office 365 as seamless as possible for your users, we will synchronize their current passwords with Office 365 whenever they change their password. This means that the new Office 365 password policy now applies to your existing subscription. Review the Office 365 password requirements to understand the changes.

4) Download the transition checklist

Start your transition prerequisites - The tasks required to configure your desktop environment can be found in the detailed transition checklist for administrators.

5) Check out your new subscription offer

The following table summarizes how Microsoft Online Services and BPOS subscriptions will map to the new Microsoft Online Services offerings after transition. All active subscriptions will be transitioned to the new offers while maintaining your current price through the end of your subscription term. Learn more at the Office 365 website.

Current Microsoft Online Services Subscription		New Office 365 or Microsoft Online Services subscription
BPOS Standard Suite	>	Office 365 (Plan E1)
BPOS Deskless Worker Suite	>	Office 365 (Plan K1)
Exchange Online	>	Exchange Online (Plan 1)
Exchange Online Deskless Worker	>	Exchange Online Kiosk
SharePoint Online	>	SharePoint Online (Plan 1)
SharePoint Online Deskless Worker	>	SharePoint Kiosk (K1)
Live Meeting Standard	>	Lync Online (Plan 2)
Office Communications Online	>	Lync Online (Plan 1)

What happens next?

Microsoft will begin contacting customers and partners this summer with September and October 2011 transition dates. Each month, we'll send out more transition scheduling notices. For more information about scheduling, please check out the transition FAQ.

Processing timeframe

The transition schedule is designed to best accommodate all customers and their needs, and that could mean your transition won’t be scheduled for several months. Don’t worry if you don’t receive a transition date immediately.

Stay up to date 
The transition center is the place to learn anything and everything about the transition process and all that Office 365 can do for your business.

Microsoft Online Services is ready to support you through a smooth transition to Office 365. If you have questions, contact our IT-level support, which is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Also, be sure to take a look at the transition forum – the answers you need are likely already available.

Updated Tools for Password Expiration, Mailbox Permissions, and Mail Forwarding

penglis — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:55:00 GMT

Microsoft is updating the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools (aka Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools), adding commandlets to allow Administrators to manage password expiration for user accounts, permissions for Exchange Online mailboxes, and server-side forwarding rules for Exchange Online.

The following commandlets are included as part of this update:

Set-MSOnlineUserPasswordNeverExpire. This commandlet allows Administrators to set user account passwords to never expire. While Microsoft does not recommend non-expiring passwords due to security best practices, non-expiring passwords are often needed for service accounts that support line of business applications, unmonitored mailboxes, and mail-enabled hardware.

Administrators setting non-expiring passwords for user accounts in their organization will need to be aware of actions required when the organization transitions from BPOS-Standard to Office 365. Required steps for organizations with non-expiring passwords can be found in an earlier post to this blog on the topic.

Add-MSOnlineMailPermission. With this commandlet, Administrators can establish alternate permissions for an Exchange Online mailbox, such as granting full access to a delegate or granting send-as and send-on-behalf permissions to a delegate.
Set-MSOnlineAlternateRecipient. This commandlet allows Administrators to set server-side rules to forward Exchange Online messages to an alternative e-mail address, including forwarding to a distribution list (DL).

The updated Transporter Tool supporting these PowerShell commandlets are now available via the Microsoft Download Center.

This Week in BPOS News 6/17

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:57:00 GMT

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here.

For this week in BPOS news we look at a household brand making the move to BPOS, and we take a step-by-step look at setting up your very own Cloud.

1. Coca-Cola Amatil turns Microsoft, won’t look back

15,000 Coca-Cola Amatil employees are BPOS users. CIO, Barry Simpson, understands the need for better collaboration and has invested heavily in Microsoft’s BPOS productivity tools. Barry touches on the cost saving advantages of moving to Microsoft BPOS. “'When companies run their own e-mail infrastructure, you tend to have large capital spikes and it’s very hard to keep current with the releases that the software companies are bringing out.'"

The ability for staff to work from any location, easy integration of mobile devices, constant updates and increased cloud capacity has enabled Coca-Cola to be on the leading edge of their field. Coca-Cola Amatil upgraded their Cloud solution from Lotus to BPOS and was able to see results:

300MB to 5GB of storage
69 servers relieved of hosting
Mobile device integration

We are glad to have Coca-Cola Amatil in the Cloud with us! Are you in the Cloud with Microsoft? Tell us your story in the comments below.

2. The Big Build – Parts 1 through 4

Are you a BPOS user that is looking to migrate to Office 365? Then our first BPOS story may be for you. Jorge R. Diaz, Senior Microsoft Engineer at Planet Technologies and Office 365 Grid member, writes four posts about his experience with deploying a client to Office 365. The four part blog post features fantastic images and step by step instructions on how to deploy Office 365. The four parts can be broken down:

Part 1 – Review the overall configuration of the migration
Part 2 – Configure the CAS/HUB array to allow Exchange delegation
Part 3 - Public folder Free/Busy configuration
Part 4 – Deploy the sign-in assistant

Do you have a migration story? Was this walkthrough useful to you? Leave your comments below.

What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox. Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

This Week in BPOS News 6/10

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:52:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we look into a great conversation with the President of Microsoft’s Business Division, and we learn a new Office 365 trick.

1. Q&A | Microsoft's Kurt DelBene: On a roll with Office 2010; looking ahead to cloud

Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times

Microsoft has announced its intentions to go “all in” to the cloud. Microsoft is committed to the cloud, and has already made some large impacts in Cloud Computing and people are following Microsoft into the Cloud. Microsoft’s business division has also made its way to the Cloud and Kurt DelBene, President of Microsoft Business division, sits down with The Seattle Times to discuss where Microsoft and the Cloud are heading.

Seattle Times author Sharon Pian Chan asks Kurt DelBene about what BPOS and Office 365 hold for users. There are some great conversations based on how much small business could save with Office 365, and discussions around the new Lync communications service.

This is a great article from The Seattle Times that should be read by anyone interested in some internal perspectives of BPOS, Office 365 and the Cloud. What are your thoughts on the direction of BPOS, Office 365 and the Cloud? Leave your comments below.

2. Recreating the Default SharePoint Online Team Site in Office 365

This Week in BPOS News should be focusing on all things BPOS, but it is hard to resist some good Office 365 content. Office 365 is the next generation of BPOS and the video below illustrates a great product that comes with Office 365, SharePoint Online. The video below shows you how to recreate the default SharePoint Online Team Site. Be sure to check out all the great Office 365 videos here.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

What videos would you like to see? Leave your suggestions below.

This Week in BPOS News 6/3

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:55:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we look at why governments are choosing Microsoft, and we learn what the future holds for Microsoft’s data centers.

1. Why Governments Buy Microsoft Online Services

Remember all of the posts about government sectors looking to the cloud? Governments have not only been looking to the cloud, but have started moving. Our first story for this week reflects on why many government sectors are choosing Microsoft over the competition when it comes to trusting their data in the cloud. The Why Microsoft blog has a fantastic article that takes an in depth look at “Why governments buy Microsoft Online Services.”

Why Microsoft author, Tony Tai, looks at case studies and examples to figure out why government sectors are choosing Microsoft Online Services. Tony breaks down the government cloud requirements in the following categories:

Saving Money while Delivering Valued Services
Using Resources Optimally
Compatibility and User Acceptance
Data Security and Data Archival

There are some great examples under each category above. I recommend anyone interested in the cloud race across government sectors to check out this Why Microsoft article.

2. Microsoft: The Cloud is the ‘Utility of the Future

Our second story for This Week in BPOS News, touches on some interesting “big picture concepts.” Christian Belady of Microsoft is tasked to look at how data and energy are related.

“Data is really a processed form of electricity,” Belady says. “We’re part of this ecosystem: an energy pipeline. If you started from scratch, what with that whole pipeline look like? How does that change infrastructure? How can we deploy the cloud?”

Christian also looks at where there can be innovations for the future. Some innovations that are discussed in the article are temperature and humidity ranges, on-site power and geography and site location.

Check out this story from Data Center Knowledge to learn more about what Microsoft is doing around their data centers.

This Week in BPOS News 5/27

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 27 May 2011 15:47:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we feature a video that will help customers prepare for the Cloud productivity evolution, and we learn about the newest city that went to the Cloud with Microsoft.

1. What Do Existing BPOS Customers Need to Do to Prepare for Microsoft Office 365?

Our first BPOS story comes to us in video form from Channel 9. The video embedded below dives into what Office 365 will offer BPOS users and how customers can prepare for the evolution in Cloud productivity software.

What are your thoughts about the video? Are you ready for Office 365? Leave your comments below.

2. Why Winston-Salem Chose Exchange Online

Our second BPOS story focuses on the competition in the Cloud and why the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina has chosen to move to the Cloud with Microsoft. Author Shane O’Neill, from CIO.com, writes a great article about Winston-Salem’s recent decision and notes some very interesting reasons for their move to the cloud.

The first reason that is mentioned from the article is costs. Shane states that “with tighter budgets than most corporations, government agencies have been the first wave of cloud adopters.” The Cloud is seen as a way to cut costs for governments versus constantly updating and maintaining local machines. Winston-Salem is deploying 2,700 seats. Most users will have fully functional desktops, and the Cloud allows for 600 “deskless” workers that don’t need the full capacity of tools. The Cloud allows Winston-Salem to maximize their dollars and cents.

It’s an exciting time for the government sector and the Cloud. San Francisco also joined Winston-Salem in the Cloud with Microsoft. What do you think of local governments moving to the cloud? What benefits do you see from cities moving to the Cloud with Microsoft? We would love to hear your thoughts below.

This Week in BPOS News 5/20

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:53:00 GMT

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here.

For this week in BPOS news we learn five things that every CIO should know, and we watch some great videos on how people are more productive with the Cloud.

1. Five Things Every CIO Should Know About the Cloud and Office

In our first BPOS story we analyze five things that every CIO should know about the Cloud and Office 365. The Microsoft Future of Productivity blog has a special guest blog post from Office 365 Group Manager, Andrew Kisslo. Microsoft Office 365 recently released its public beta, and there is no one better than Andrew Kisslo to walk you through the top five talking points from Microsoft’s Cloud.

The five things every CIO should know are listed on the blog in the following order:

1. The cloud can reduce costs.

a. Pretty self-explanatory. The Cloud is cheaper than keeping an on-premises system that you need to have an IT surround and constantly upgrade.

2. Microsoft delivers the cloud in your terms.

a. Check out the link above to see how you can customize and have the “Cloud in your terms.”

3. Office 365 can democratize IT

a. Specific employee groups can have customized parts of the Cloud power their business. The Cloud enables more employees.

4. Office 365 is familiar and secure across the PC, phone or browser

a. One familiar experience across platforms. No additional training needed.

5. Microsoft delivers enterprise-level support

a. Microsoft brings top-level support to your company.

What are things should every CIO know that aren’t listed above? Leave your thoughts and comments below. Remember to sign up for the Office 365 beta.

2. Connect to the office from the road, home, or nearly anywhere with Microsoft Lync

In our second BPOS story we take a look at the next generation of communication with a video about Microsoft’s Cloud Communications services. This is a self-shot montage of IT professionals that have been utilizing Microsoft Lync and Office Communicator. The theme of this video is “Office Anywhere” and the interviews highlight some great examples and scenarios in which the Cloud has helped businesses be more productive. This is a great video for anyone that needs more proof that the Cloud helps us collaborate better than ever.

Do you have an “Office Anywhere” story? Let us know below in the comments.

This Week in BPOS News 5/13

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:01:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we find out about the future success of Cloud Computing, and learn how to make Office 365 better.

1. Cloud computing Market: $241 billion in 2020

The cloud is one of the fastest growing sectors in the technology industry and Forrester Research has estimated that Cloud Computing will grow from “$40.7 billion in 2011 to $241 billion in 2020.” ZDNet peers into the future of Cloud Computing by outlining how Forrester Research foresees the infrastructure, adoption rates and revenues of the future cloud market.

Forrester Research predicts that more businesses will rapidly adopt Software as a service. “Software as a service will be adopted by companies of all sizes. In 2011, SaaS will be a $21.2 billion market and grow to $92.8 billion in 2016. AT that point SaaS comes closer to saturation.”

The graph below details how Forrester Research sees the cloud landscape evolving through 2020:

What do you predict the Cloud will look like in 2020? Leave your comments below.

2. Feedback on Future BlackBerry Cloud Services from RIM for Office 365

The Office 365 technical blog recently posted an opportunity for customers to participate in making the Admin experience for Office 365 with BlackBerry Business Cloud Services better. This is a great chance to have your voice heard and provide real feedback that will affect how thousands of customers interact with Office 365.

You must pass the following criteria to participate:

You are an employee of a company which has licenses for BPOS Standard or Exchange Online Standard as well as the current Hosted BlackBerry service from Microsoft.
You are responsible for managing cloud email services and setting-up email on mobile phones.
You are willing to spend 30 minutes with us on the phone between May 11th and May 20th, 2011 to provide constructive feedback on scenarios. Calls will be done using LiveMeeting and may include one or a few customer participants as well as participants from Microsoft and from Research in Motion.

Click here to complete the nomination survey.

How would you improve the user experience of Office 365? Leave your comments below.

Update On BPOS-Standard Email Issues

DaveT_MSFT — Fri, 13 May 2011 00:47:00 GMT

I lead the engineering organization responsible for BPOS. My team builds, operates and supports our BPOS service, and over the last few days, we have not satisfied our customer’s needs. On Tuesday and today we experienced three separate service issues that impacted customers served from our Americas data center. All of these issues have been resolved and the service is now running smoothly. These incidents were unique to BPOS and not related to Office 365 or any other Microsoft services.

I’d like to apologize to you, our customers and partners, for the obvious inconveniences these issues caused. We know that email is a critical part of your business communication, and my team and I fully recognize our responsibility as your partner and service provider. We will provide a full post mortem, and will also provide additional updates on how our service level agreement (SLA) was impacted. We will be proactively issuing a service credit to our impacted customers.

I also want to provide more detail about the recent issues.

On Tuesday at 9:30am PDT, the BPOS-S Exchange service experienced an issue with one of the hub components due to malformed email traffic on the service. Exchange has the built-in capability to handle such traffic, but encountered an obscure case where that capability did not work correctly. The result was a growing backlog of email. By 12:00pm PDT, the malformed traffic was isolated and the mail queues cleared. The delays encountered by customers varied, on the order of 6-9 hours. Short term mitigation was implemented and a fix was under development.

At 9:10am PDT today, service monitoring again detected malformed email traffic on the service. The problem was resolved at 10:03am, but users experienced up to 45 minute email delays during this time. A second, but related issue was detected via monitoring at 11:35am PDT, resulting in email stuck in some end users’ outboxes. The issue was remediated at 12:04pm PDT. During this time, more than 1.5 million messages had queued on the service awaiting delivery. The backlog was 90% clear by 4:12 PM, but because of this large backlog of email, customers may have experienced delays of as long as 3 hours. We are implementing a comprehensive fix to both problems.

As a result of Tuesday’s incident, we feel we could have communicated earlier and been more specific. Effective today, we updated our communications procedures to be more extensive and timely. We understand that it is critical for our customers to be as fully informed as possible during service impacting events. We will continue to improve the timeliness and specificity of our communications. The primary mechanism for communicating to our customers on issues has been and will continue to be the Service Health Dashboard. For North America, that dashboard is at https://health.noam.microsoftonline.com/.

In an unrelated incident, starting at 1:04am PDT, service monitoring detected a failure in the Domain Name Service (DNS) hosting the http://mail.microsoftonline.com domain. This failure, prevented users from accessing Outlook Web Access hosted in the Americas, and partially impacted some functionality of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync devices. The team diagnosed, and fixed, an underlying problem in the servers hosting Domain Name Service (DNS) for the http://mail.microsoftonline.com domain, and restored service at 4:52am PDT. The team identified a number of improvements in our handling of problems associated with DNS, and will provide a full post mortem of this incident available through Microsoft Support.

As I’ve said before, all of us in the BPOS team and at Microsoft appreciate the serious responsibility we have as a service provider to you, and we know that any issue with the service is a disruption to your business – that’s not acceptable. I want to assure you that we are investing the time and resources required to ensure we are living up to your – and our own – expectations for a quality service experience every day.

As always, if you are experiencing any service issues, we encourage customers to check the Service Health Dashboard for the latest information or contact our customer support team. Our customer support is available 24 hours a day by telephone or via Service Requests submitted from the Microsoft Online Services Administration Center.

May 17, 2011 Update:
I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read the comments, and though JRG has been responding to many of them, I wanted to address some of the common themes:

Thanks for the feedback on the dashboard. I know that we have not been timely enough with information. While it can be difficult to trade off timeliness against certainty and accuracy, we know it is critical and we have an ongoing initiative to track and improve communications performance. We specifically failed to provide adequate updates last Tuesday, with the first update about 90 minutes into the incident. I commit that we will work harder to improve our communications.

Many of you have argued that the health dashboard should not require a login. Let me explain why we designed it that way. While today’s health dashboard provides service-wide information, our ultimate goal is to provide a customer-specific view of service health. To provide information that is tailored and appropriate for both end-users and administrators, authentication is required. This updated dashboard which provides customer specific information is under development right now and will be available in 6 – 8 weeks. As with the dashboard today, there is no special password required – any BPOS user or administrator can access it. Finally, we’re increasing the timeout period so the dashboard won’t log you out as quickly.
While our phone support is available 24x7, our system was overloaded on Tuesday and Thursday. As well, there was a problem with the voice message issued on Tuesday (corrected on Thursday). We are adding more phone lines as a result of this overload. But a better fix is to release more and timely information on the dashboard. In the rare (though not rare enough last week!) case of a broad outage, phone support is not a truly scalable way of providing information, so we are working diligently to improve our communications procedures and deploy the customer-specific dashboard.
To enable faster recovery time from backlogged message queues, we have already added and continue to add more hub server capacity and have deployed a software update to all datacenters to improve how BPOS handles malformed email messages.

I want to again sincerely apologize for the inconvenience last week’s issues caused you, our customers and partners.

Dave Thompson

Corporate Vice-President, Microsoft Online Services

Feedback on Future BlackBerry Cloud Services from RIM for Office 365

JoshT_MSFT — Mon, 09 May 2011 19:00:22 GMT

Microsoft is identifying customers to participate in admin user experience interview sessions based on the nomination survey below. We are interested in customer feedback on planned Admin Scenarios for Office 365 with BlackBerry Business Cloud Services. If you meet these criteria and would like to share your feedback, please contact us using the self-nomination form below. Completing this survey does not guarantee participation, though we hope to speak with as many of you as possible who are interested.

Self-nomination criteria:

You are an employee of a company which has licenses for BPOS Standard or Exchange Online Standard as well as the current Hosted BlackBerry service from Microsoft.
You are responsible for managing cloud email services and setting-up email on mobile phones.
You are willing to spend 30 minutes with us on the phone between May 11th and May 20th, 2011 to provide constructive feedback on scenarios. Calls will be done using LiveMeeting and may include one or a few customer participants as well as participants from Microsoft and from Research in Motion.

Click here to complete the nomination survey.

Click here to see the original post.

This Week in BPOS News 5/6

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:50:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we learn about a small town that is cashing in and creating jobs with the Cloud, and discover a great resource for anyone moving from BPOS to Office 365.

1. Quincy Cashes in on the Cloud

Our first BPOS story focuses on how the expanding landscape of the Cloud is increasing economies in rural areas. Quincy is a sleepy town of 5,044 that sits in the center of the state of Washington. It is about a 3 hour drive from Microsoft headquarters, but houses facilities for Microsoft that help power the Cloud. Business Week focuses on this town and how it is turning into a technical economy.

Microsoft isn’t the only technology company in Quincy. Dell, Yahoo, Intuit and Sabey have claimed land to erect their own data centers in Quincy. The article dives into how this town is riding the Cloud and engaging its economy through hosting Cloud computing infrastructure. The town also looks out for its residents by “Exchanging tax breaks for jobs.” Quincy gives tax breaks to the tech companies that employ at least 35 percent of the impending new jobs to local residents. The article also explains how Quincy was able to plan and invest for the present demand in cloud construction.

Be sure to check out the entire article here. What are your thoughts?

2. Manage your transition from BPOS to Office 365

Are you transitioning to Office 365 from BPOS? If you are migrating or thinking of moving to Office 365, be sure to check out this useful resource on how to manage your transition from BPOS to Office 365. In this article you will find answers to what differentiates Office 365 from BPOS, how to try Office 365, and how to transition to Office 365.

What is the difference between Office 365 and BPOS?

Service	BPOS	Office 365
Exchange Online	X	X
SharePoint Online	X	X
Office Live Meeting	X	Replaced by Lync Online.*
Lync Online		X
Office Professional Plus		X

The article comes from the Microsoft Online Services Help and How-to portal which houses plenty of great information for current BPOS customers. Be sure to check out the following helpful articles:

· BPOS to Office 365: Transition Checklist for Administrators

· Transition your account from BPOS to Office 365

· Contact Technical Support

· Troubleshoot issues with your transition to Office 365

Are you migrating to Office 365? How do you feel about the migration process? Leave your comments and thoughts below.

This Week in BPOS News 4/29

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:57:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we learn about Microsoft’s new specialty servers, and how Microsoft earned FISMA certification in the cloud.

Microsoft Reveals its Specialty Servers, Racks

Microsoft revealed the details and designs of new specialty servers and racks. Microsoft engineer, Dileep Bhandarkar, knew that a sleeker and more efficient server was needed, “When Microsoft saw its server counts and data center footprint growing, it became clear that we needed to improve efficiency.” Our first BPOS story comes from Data Center Knowledge and outlines the new Microsoft servers being revealed. The new half-width server design allows for Microsoft to optimize server energy usage. Idle server usage is dropping from using “50 percent of the power (used when the server is active)….to about 30 percent,” says Bhandarkar.

Microsoft is not the only company to introduce new efficient servers. Google and the Facebook Open Compute project have also been a part of this “broader industry conversion.” “This is not rocket science,” said Bhandarkar. “Smart people facing the same problems will come up with similar solutions. Driving the entire industry forward helps us in the long run.”

What do you think of the new designs? What do you think of the industry shifting its focus to more efficient servers? Leave your thoughts below.

Microsoft’s BPOS-Federal system receives FISMA certification, lands USDA as customer

*image source

Microsoft BPOS has recently received the Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA, certification. This certification makes it easier for Microsoft to offer the government cloud services. The United States Department of Agriculture is one of those organizations that will be moving 120,000 employees to Microsoft’s cloud.

Microsoft is also making a push to for more FISMA certification across other cloud services. A quote from The Next Web states that “We [Microsoft] plan to pursue FISMA certification and accreditation for Office 365, our next generation cloud productivity suite, after it launches.”

What do you think of the FISMA certification? What other Microsoft products should receive the FISMA certificate? Leave your comments below.

Plan for your Office 365 transition

JoshT_MSFT — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:06:42 GMT

Hopefully, you know by now that as an existing Microsoft Online Services customer, your subscription will be transitioned to the equivalent Office 365 suite or service after it becomes available. In anticipation of these upcoming changes, I wanted to provide some resources on what will be happening, what steps you will need to take, and what you can expect during the transition process.

The transition process itself will be automatic. However, there are a few things you should do to prepare.

Recommendation #1: Download the transition guide

This guide is your go-to resource for all questions you might have related to your transition. Make sure to review this comprehensive overview to get a better understanding of the tasks you need to complete, the scheduling process, the system requirements for each of the products within the Office 365 suite, information on the transition experience for the administrator and your end-users, as well as detailed checklists to help you plan.

I am calling out suggested resources with specific details within the transition guide that you should read:

Detailed transition checklist
Transition experience for customers
Key decisions and actions

You can download the guide at any time.

Recommendation #2: Watch the Office 365 transition video

This video explains the overall transition process to Office 365—the future of collaboration, communications and online productivity. The video is in English, but the presentation used within the video is available in other languages.

Recommendation #3: Keep your team informed - create a distribution list
The best way to keep your team updated about the transition is to generate a distribution list for all the key technical contacts in your organization. Create a unique alias for this list, and use the alias as your contact preference within Microsoft Online Services. Get started right away by adding your distribution list to your contact information on the Microsoft Online Services Administration Consol.

Recommendation #4: Be sure you know the Office 365 system requirements

Depending on your current desktop configuration, updates may be required to enable some of the Office 365 features. Check out the system requirements for more information on features such as synchronization of on-premises mailboxes and Active Directory, configuration services for Single Sign-On, and re-delegation for your email domain (MX Record) to enable email.

Recommendation #5: Always stay up to date
The transition center web site at www.bpostransition.com is the place to learn anything and everything about the transition process. Do you have questions still? Join the conversation in the transition forum.

Next steps

Over the next few months you will be hearing from Microsoft again with another update and this will include a personalized survey to let us know approx. when transitioning will work for your business. Once your business has filled out the survey, we will send you an email to your email address contacts on file – including the technical contact email address - to let you know about your scheduled transition date. This is why it is very important to ensure that your technical contact information is both up to date, and to add a transition distribution alias as this contact. It will help to ensure that we are communicating to the right folks in your organization to make this as seamless as possible.

Is this helpful? Do you need other information? Let me know by providing a comment to this blog post.

Michael O’Neill

BPOS-S: Configuring Outlook 2011 for Mac with the New Sign In Application

JoshT_MSFT — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:41:00 GMT

Update 12/21/2011: We are in the process of removing outdated videos. This video has been marked private and will be removed in the next few weeks.

In our latest BPOS Support series video, we learn how to configure Outlook 2011 for Mac with the new Sign In application. Microsoft Online users with Macintosh computers will find the video below very helpful. If you installed Outlook 2011 for Mac, you may need to install the new Sign In application. This video shows you how to install the new Sign In application as well as some other great tips and tricks including the following:

Creating a new Outlook identity
Configuring Outlook 2011
Check account settings

Was this video helpful? Learn more about Microsoft Online Services with our other support and how to blog posts.

What support videos would you like to see? We want to hear from you in the comments section below or send an email to our community mailbox. Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

This Week in BPOS News 4/22

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:40:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we focus on the next generation of BPOS, Office 365.

1. Office 365 is "Ready for Work"

The Public Beta for Office 365 was announced earlier this week. The public beta allows for more people to jump onto Office 365 in 38 countries and supporting 17 languages. We’ve had a ton of interest, which includes over 100,000 organizations signing up during our limited beta. You can reserve your spot for the beta by visiting www.office365.com. But remember, due to high demand, your promo code will be emailed to you when your spot comes up.

If you are waiting for your Beta invite, there are plenty of other ways to get involved with the new Office 365 offering. The “Office 365: Ready for Work” contest was announced which allows small business owners to share their story. This is a great way to win fabulous prizes and to share your story with the world. Be sure to visit the Visit the contest page on Facebook for more information.

Are you excited for Office 365? What are your thoughts? Have you signed up for the Public Beta? Are you already in the Beta program? Leave your comments below.

2. Microsoft launches Office 365 Marketplace selling Web apps for businesses

Along with the announcement of Office 365, Microsoft has also announced a web-based market that will sell Office 365 applications and services. The Office 365 Marketplace already features more than 150 company offerings that accompany Microsoft’s Office 365 technology. You can view and filter applications by featured professional services, featured applications, by business need, industry focus, department and service type. The marketplace provides a great opportunity for companies to get wide visibility into their fantastic products and offerings.

Are you interested in getting listed on the Office 365 Marketplace? Let us know by clicking here.

What applications are you excited about? Do you have an application on the market? Let us know in the comments section below.

What goes into a FISMA certification?

JoshT_MSFT — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:34:00 GMT

Written By: Yong-Gon Chon, CTO of SecureInfo Corporation

I work for SecureInfo, an exclusive provider of cybersecurity services. We have served the Federal government for over 10 years and are involved in securing information assets used across the US Civilian Sector and the Department of Defense. We routinely conduct independent third-party assessments of systems used by these organizations in support of Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliance programs. In the thousands of FISMA related engagements we’ve performed over the years, we have been actively involved in assessing information systems that serve US citizens and enable warfighters, including complex, mission-critical, and highly classified systems. SecureInfo customers include the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Air Force and the United States Army, as well as private industry clients that must meet Federal security requirements. Most recently, we worked with Microsoft to perform an independent assessment of the Business Productivity Online Suite – Federal (BPOS-F) offering support and guidance to achieve an Authority to Operate (ATO).

The successful security authorization of Microsoft BPOS-F through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) at a Moderate Impact level is a major accomplishment as it safely enables the consolidation of 21 different messaging platforms and provides Software as a Service (SaaS) to 120,000 end users in 5,000 offices within the US and over 100 countries world-wide. SecureInfo’s assessment was performed using the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Risk Management Framework.. We used the most recent version of the NIST SP 800-53A publication as the key procedural guidance in our assessment activities.

Our assessment was rigorous and required Microsoft to demonstrate effective implementation of approximately 160 different management, operational and technical controls to a team of subject matter experts with a combined total of 99 years of industry experience. Our testing included an extensive review of their policies and procedures, interviews with their key personnel involved in delivering and supporting BPOS-F, examination of security related configuration settings, vulnerability scans of all components included within the environment (operating systems, databases, and web applications) and penetration testing. Additionally, SecureInfo assessed the physical and environmental controls of the Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS) domestic United States data centers where BPOS-F is hosted.

Based on our review, we’re confident Microsoft understands that operating and delivering a secure cloud computing solution is an ongoing process. As a result, SecureInfo will be supporting Microsoft’s continuous monitoring program consistent with the requirements outlined in the NIST continuous monitoring guidance (SP 800-137).

BPOS-Federal & FISMA

JoshT_MSFT — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:35:58 GMT

By: Eron Kelly

I am pleased to share that BPOS-Federal has received FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) certification and accreditation.

FISMA was passed in 2002 and created a process for federal agencies to certify and accredit the security of information management systems. FISMA certification and accreditation indicates that a federal agency has approved a particular solution for its use in line with the level of security established by that agency.

The certification and accreditation has resulted in an official “Authorization to Operate” (ATO) issued on April 19 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services-Federal, which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online. It follows a similar authorization issued by the USDA in November for the Microsoft data centers that will deliver these services to the USDA. We plan to pursue FISMA certification and accreditation for Office 365, our next generation cloud productivity suite, after it launches.

As a result of this action, the USDA is migrating 120,000 employees to Microsoft’s BPOS-Federal service. This means that the USDA can use BPOS-Federal to handle a variety of tasks. For example, the USDA’s Food Security programs can use BPOS-Federal to respond to food safety emergencies, the U.S. Forest Service can use BPOS-Federal to coordinate its efforts to fight forest fires, and the Foreign Agriculture Service can use BPOS-Federal to manage the distribution of food aid to millions of people around the world.

We take our responsibility to protect customer data very seriously, and our cloud services already meet some of the industry’s most rigorous global security and privacy standards. FISMA for BPOS-Federal is just the latest example.

We are very excited by this news and committed to serving the needs of our public sector customers. You can learn more about the specific elements of the latest BPOS-Federal solution here, and about Microsoft Online Services generally at www.microsoft.com/online. If you have questions about Microsoft’s cloud offerings for government, ask your Microsoft rep or your partner, or you can ask in the comments below.

Thanks,

Eron

Office 365 is “Ready for Work”

JoshT_MSFT — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:53:47 GMT

The next generation of BPOS is here. Today, we are announcing a public beta of Office 365, expanding it to millions more people, in more regions, and languages – a total of 38 countries and 17 languages in all. You can secure your spot for the beta at www.office365.com.

Read more about the announcement on the Office 365 blog here.

We are also announcing an “Office 365: Ready for Work” contest. Small business owners can share their story and be eligible to win the following:

Office 365,
$50,000 in advertising and business services,
A Microsoft executive to work for them or their charity of choice for a day.

Be sure to visit the Visit the contest page on Facebook for more information.

For more Office 365 news refer to the the Office 365 Blog, the Office 365 Facebook and Twitter channels.

Are you getting the Office 365 beta? What are your thoughts on Office 365. Leave your comments below.

Preparing BPOS-S Passwords for Office 365

penglis — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:29:00 GMT

UPDATE: Please note, the application of the Office 365 password policy for BPOS-S users has shifted. The new dates for the change in password policy are: July 2 for Asia-Pacific, July 9 for Americas, and July 16 for Europe.

On April 1, Microsoft informed customers via e-mail about an upcoming change to Business Productivity Online Suite Standard (BPOS-S) passwords to prepare for the transition to Office 365.

The password policy for Office 365 is slightly different than the password policy for BPOS-S today. To ensure that passwords used for BPOS-S today can be transitioned to and used in Office 365, the Office 365 password policy will be enforced for BPOS-S users beginning in July. Following is the deployment schedule for each region:

Region	Deployment Date
Asia-Pacific	July 2
Americas	July 9
Europe	July 16

What does that mean for organizations that use BPOS-S today? After the deploymnet date for each region, when a password is reset or when a user account is created, the Office 365 password policy will be enforced. Specifically, users will be required to follow these rules:

Passwords must be between 8 and 16 characters.

Passwords can no longer contain Unicode characters, including those used in languages currently supported by Unicode exclusively. Only the following characters are allowed for Office 365 passwords:

A-Z, a-z, 0-9, ! @ # $ % ^ & * - _ + = [ ] { } | \ : ' , . ? / ` ~ " < > ( ) ;

The Office 365 password policy will be reflected in the password reset utility in the Microsoft Online Administration Center (MOAC) and the My Company Portal, as well as in related Microsoft Online Services PowerShell commandlets.

BPOS-S users whose passwords do not meet the new requirements will find that their current passwords will not work after they have transitioned to Office 365. For the best transition experience, Administrators will want to make sure that all users, including service accounts, change their password after the July password policy change and prior to the organization's transition to Office 365.

What if users do not change their password prior to transition?

If users do not change their password prior to transition to Office 365, they will not be able to login to their Office 365 account without intervention by Administrators.

Post transition, Administrators can use the Office 365 Administration Center to reset user passwords. When a user password is reset, Office 365 provides a temporary password that they can be used for initial sign in to Office 365.

Alternatively, Administrators can assign users new passwords using the PowerShell commandlets provided in the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool.

What if an organization has a non-expiring password policy?

If users are not automatically prompted to change their passwords via regularly expiring passwords, Administrators have several options prior to transition:

Instruct end-users to change their passwords using the Microsoft Online Services Sign In application or the My Company portal.

Reset end user passwords using the Microsoft Online Administration Center. Users will receive a temporary password, which they must reset when they sign in to BPOS-S.

Assign end users new passwords using PowerShell commandlets provided in the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool.

Alternatively, Administrators can wait until their organization transitions to Office 365 and use one of the password setup options described above.

More Information

The Windows PowerShell commandlets for changing user passwords are documented in this article on the Help and How-to Portal.

Administrators can find more information, FAQs and checklists to help prepare for the transition to Office 365 at the Microsoft Office 365 Transition Center.

This Week in BPOS News 4/15

JoshT_MSFT — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:53:00 GMT

For this week in BPOS news we take a look at a new Public School system embracing Microsoft’s cloud, and we learn about an essential BPOS tip to increase your productivity.

Delhi Schools Embrace Microsoft Cloud-Based Email over Google

Our first BPOS story comes from the Why Microsoft blog. Tony Tai takes a look at why schools in Delhi are choosing Microsoft’s cloud over the competition. One of the focuses of the Why Microsoft blog is to bring real customer stories to light. This latest post helps outline the ongoing competition to provide the academic sector with the best possible collaboration and productivity cloud solutions. Tony dives into why Microsoft came out on top for Delhi Public Schools.

“We can offer our students and teachers a technology that is on par with the corporate world without charging any additional fees for it."

Mr. M.I. Hussain

Principal, Delhi Public Schools

The Why Microsoft blog does a great job breaking down the challenges, solutions and benefits with choosing the right solution for their cloud. The benefits listed in this article outline three crucial areas that Delhi Public Schools wanted to focus on:

Easier, Faster Intra-School Communication and Collaboration
Improves Parent – Teacher Communication
Easy Access from Any Device

We are glad to have Delhi Public Schools in the cloud with Microsoft. Make sure to read the full post here. What other benefits do schools gain from going to the cloud? Leave your comments below.

Creating and Troubleshooting Conference Room Mailboxes

For our second BPOS story we take a look at the latest BPOS support video and learn how to create and troubleshoot conference room mailboxes. The video below demonstrates how to create conferencing or equipment calendar solutions for your company.

What other BPOS tips do you have? Leave your comment below.