This morning, Microsoft announced Microsoft Office 365, which brings our best productivity products to the cloud, offering them as a service to organizations of all sizes. This is a new brand that will replace the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Live@edu, and Office Live Small Business. It combines the familiar Microsoft Office desktop suite with cloud-based versions of our communications and collaborations services: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.

For Microsoft partners, Microsoft Office 365 offers new and incremental revenue opportunities. It expands your potential customer base considerably, with offerings for companies ranging in size from very small businesses to enterprise, and including higher education and K-12 institutions. Other partner opportunities:

  • Meeting more of your customers’ IT needs more quickly;
  • Using Office as a familiar connection point to start the cloud conversation;
  • Supplement your deployment and migration practice with managed services that provide you with recurring revenue.

Since Office 365 will not be available until calendar year 2011, we encourage Microsoft Online Services Reseller partners to continue to sell BPOS to their customers. Between now and Office 365 availability, the Microsoft Partner Network will continue to provide you with cloud-related guidance, training, and offerings. We have listed key resources below, and will tell you more soon through this blog and our other U.S. partner outreach efforts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).

Cheers,

Diane Golshan
Sr. Marketing Manager, U.S. Partner Team
Learn more about what I do at Microsoft.

Get More Information about Office 365

Prepare for Office 365 with these BPOS Resources

Office 365 (“Wave 14”) Training on the Partner Learning Center