office365stories

Small business IT Trend: competing against bigger business by boosting mobile productivity

Matthew Tennant — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:09:00 GMT

Ask just about any small business owner what keeps them up at night and you’re likely to hear, “Losing customers to larger companies” among others. The concern that a bigger company will steal away existing customers is a legitimate challenge for any company, especially if they’re outmatched in terms of time and money by larger counterparts. Fortunately, a trend in small business IT is allowing small business leaders a way to amplify their strengths and level the playing field against bigger competitors: The rise of small business mobile productivity.

Gone are the days when small businesses employees wait until they’re back in the office to move the business forward. Today’s most effective small businesses are looking to their mobile devices to empower them to do more with less in a bevy of ways including:

Responding immediately to customer requests
Collaborating with partners and colleagues from anywhere around the clock
Approving and editing documents & presentations on the go

The result: customers feel more connected, small businesses retain customers, and small business leaders still have time to focus on improving the business. It’s no wondering a whopping 85% of small businesses use smartphones to improve productivity & 2/3 small businesses say they wouldn’t survive without wireless technology.

How to get started

As work continues to be more a thing you do rather than a place you go, getting the right tools into the hands of small business employees is increasingly important. Luckily, you don’t have to have a big budget to get your hands on powerful solutions anymore. Here are a couple recent offers courtesy of Microsoft partners aimed at helping small businesses:

Free Windows Phone + Discounted Office Home & Business

Here’s a nice video that plays out some scenarios that will help add color to the trends we mentioned above.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

If you have any questions or would like to see how other small businesses are using mobile technology in their company don’t hesitate to connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Check out the September “Out-of-Office” Office Photo

Matthew Tennant — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:50:00 GMT

Congratulations to Leif Holland whose photo grabbed top honors in the first round of voting for the “Out of Office” Office Photo Contest. Josh Gordon earned second place and Nathan Parker took third.

It’s not too late to enter your own fabulous shot of your favorite out-of-office work space. Go here to submit your photo (and send this link to your friends and family so they can vote for it). You could win some awesome prizes—includinga Samsung Series 9 Notebook, Windows Phone, and more.

There are two more chances to win through November 14^th.

So get started! Or just check out the photo gallery—there are more fantastic shots! http://msft.it/PhotoMS

Microsoft Office 365 Customer Events - Coming Soon to a City Near You!

Matthew Tennant — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 02:05:00 GMT

Collaboration without boundaries.

You've built a team that works together. Now get technology that does, too. Microsoft Office 365 allows you to collaborate in the cloud with Office, Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync videoconferencing, on the devices your people use the most, so they can connect from virtually anywhere.*

Please join us at one of the following Microsoft Stores:

October 26 — Los Angeles, CA, Westfield Century City
Hosted by SADA Systems

October 27 — Oak Brook, IL, Oakbrook Center
Hosted by Consistent Computer Bargains (CCB)

November 2 — Lone Tree, CO, Park Meadows Mall
Hosted by Software Wholesale Intl. (SWI)

November 8 — Houston, TX, Houston Galleria
Hosted by Strategic Saas

November 8 — San Diego, CA, Fashion Valley Mall
Hosted by Agile IT

November 9 — Scottsdale, AZ, Scottsdale Fashion Square
Hosted by Agile IT

November 9 — Atlanta, GA, Lenox Square Mall
Hosted by Rosebud Technologie

Join us to discover the benefits of Microsoft Office 365 firsthand, and learn about related cloud technologies, such as Windows Intune and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Great Office 365 Tips, Tricks and Strategies at SMB Nation Next Week

Matthew Tennant — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:56:00 GMT

Are you heading to SMB Nation’s Fall 2011 conference in Las Vegas next week? If so, you’ll have the chance to catch Maggie Chan Jones, Microsoft’s Director of Cloud Services & Office 365 -U.S. Business & Marketing Group delivering excellent insights into leveraging Microsoft’s Cloud offerings to win in SMB.

This is a great opportunity to gain specific ideas for succeeding with The Cloud from someone who understands what this technology has to offer SMBs better than almost anyone. Maggie will deep dive into—

Partner Opportunity: Enabling partners to compete and win in 2011 and beyond
Microsoft in the Cloud: Building momentum with Microsoft's Cloud Offerings
Learning from Success: Leveraging best practices to build your business with Online Services

Maggie will be speaking Thursday, September 29, at 6pm in the Rio Hotel conference hall. Go here now to reserve your spot!

Earlier that day, you ‘ll also have the chance to join Jeff Medford, Technical Product Manager for Office 365, in an Office 365 technical training hands-on lab. Jeff will deliver an expert tips and tricks ranging from Office 365 setup and configuration to demonstration skills and techniques.

Jeff ‘s session starts just a few hours before Maggie’s at 1pm on Thursday. You can sign-up here.

Where is “The Cloud”?

Matthew Tennant — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:21:43 GMT

Office 365 gives us the freedom to work anywhere through cloud computing. But where is The Cloud?

With so much discussion about data centers and The Cloud recently, it seems like new technology. But Microsoft has been operating large-scale data centers for more than two decades.

If you’d like a deeper look at how Microsoft uses secure, reliable, scalable and efficient best practices to deliver over 200 cloud services to more than a billion customers and 20 million businesses in over 70 countries, take a look at this video.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

Take a Shot at the “Out-of-Office” Office Photo Contest!

Matthew Tennant — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:55:00 GMT

Microsoft Office 365 lets people work from virtually anywhere.

We're celebrating that freedom with the "Out-of-Office" Office photo contest.

Today we get the freedom to work places we never would have managed—thanks to Microsoft Office 365. Taking a meeting on a park bench? Catching up with email at your kid’s swim lesson? Show the world!

Here’s how it works: Take your best shot of your favorite out-of-office work space, send it in, and you could win some awesome prizes—including a Samsung Series 9 Notebook, Windows Phone, and more.

There are three chances to win through November 14^th.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

So get started! Go here to submit your photo (and send this link to your friends and family so they can vote for it). Or just check out the photo gallery—there are some fantastic shots! http://msft.it/PhotoMS

Meg Heim Shares Tips on Growing Sales and Your Business

Matthew Tennant — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:19:00 GMT

Meg Heim, Vice President of Marketing for BioMedix™, sat down recently to share how her company implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online plus Microsoft Office 365—gaining a 360 degree view of their customers for measurable improvements in marketing investments and sales results, as well as increased overall business efficiency. “Salesforce.com works great for sales transactions, but Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online went beyond sales to pull together all areas of our business.” said Meg.

The Medical Device and Software Firm continues to support rapid growth by moving to Online Services to rapidly grow the company using Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online plus Microsoft Office 365 to increase end user productivity without having to worry about scaling its IT infrastructure

If you missed the virtual event with Meg, it’s not too late to hear her tips for building a highly successful, integrated solution that scales to your business.

Watch it here and read the Customer Solution Case Study here.

Microsoft Partners in Heated “Race to Innovate”

Matthew Tennant — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:57:39 GMT

Congratulations to SADA Systems, winner of the Microsoft July Grand Prix of Innovation! The Microsoft partner, with offices in Los Angeles, Indonesia, and Singapore, captured the first spot in the six-month heat race. SADA Systems will be featured now as a Cloud Innovator on the Wall Street Journal, as well as receive a promotional blitz in targeted media around the country.

Not to mention being entered into the running as the Microsoft Champion Cloud Innovator.

Winner of the championship race will receive the ultimate motorsports prize package: A "Race Car Owner's Experience" with the championship-winning Level 5 Motorsports American Le Mans Series Race Team. This means being part of a major three-day race car event, including admission for 10, and placement of your logo on one of the leading racecars (Level 5 Motorsports) along with the Office 365 logo. The all-inclusive event offers trackside dining and entertainment, pit lane experience, pace car rides and event memorabilia—plus $2,000 USD for travel and entertainment.

It’s not too late to get in the race.

Altogether there are 11 Grand Prix competitions until the Championship race January, 2012. So get in there! To find out more, check out this video or click here for entry information.

Author Shares Productivity Secrets at Live and Virtual Events

Matthew Tennant — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:49:00 GMT

The Bellevue Microsoft Store opened its doors early recently for a crowd gathered to grab a copy of the just-published Office 365 in Business. Author David M. Kroenke was on hand to sign copies and share some of his tips and best practices for making the most of Microsoft’s latest Cloud productivity technology.

David got an early start with Office 365. As a textbook author, he lives in a world of tight deadlines, complex processes, and collaborations with editors and publishers in multiple time zones—so he joined the Office 365 beta to see what the technology might offer him. He quickly decided Office 365 would “blow the barn doors off the market.”

That experience was the inspiration for Office 365 in Business.

At the recent book-signing event, David explained how Office 365 can transform small and mid-sized businesses--describing his own experiences and using real-world scenarios to demonstrate solutions to a range of business challenges.

Then David and Office 365 in Business co-author, Don Nilson, sat down with Microsoft senior product manager Penny Delgadillo for a great discussion about how Office 365 can boost small business productivity, hitting the hot topic of Cloud data and security. If you missed this virtual event, you can see it here.

The next Virtual Event is August 25th 10am PST Grow your business with Office 365 + Dynamics CRM Online: A customer testimonial

No-Brainer for Small Businesses - July 27 Event

Matthew Tennant — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:17:00 GMT

By David M. Kroenke, Textbook Author

I’ve been an independent textbook author since 1974, mostly writing college-level texts on the use of technology in business. I’m based in Seattle and Whidbey Island, but I work with a team of editors and designers all over the United States. We produce two or three new editions of information systems textbooks a year.

Textbook publishing is a complex, detail-oriented process with the potential for a zillion errors to creep in. It’s also time-critical. We can only publish in late December or early January. Our team relies on emails and file servers to share chapters, but everyone knows the problems with that: people don’t read their emails, or they don’t get an attachment, or you can’t identify the latest document version on the server, or you want the version that is two versions before the current one.

As soon as I heard about Office 365, I wrote everyone I know at Microsoft to get into the beta program. After using it a few days, realizing how productive it made me, I thought, “This is big-time; it’s going to blow the barn doors off the market.” So, I stopped working on my then-current textbook and Don Nilson and I started writing a book for business professionals about using Office 365. (Titled Office 365 in Business, to be published by Wiley.)

Office 365 makes it easier than ever to work with people all over the country. If I want to show a diagram or document to our team, I use Lync Online to share it using video conferencing. It’s like we’re sitting together in the same room—actually it’s better because we can save our whiteboard, something we can’t do face-to-face. The saved whiteboards become de facto minutes and a by-product of the meeting that no one has to write.

I’m even more fanatical about Microsoft SharePoint Online, part of the Office 365 suite. We use it to track documents, screenshots, tasks, and calendars. Version control is the biggest benefit for a small business like mine. The textbook production process generates dozens of drafts and hundreds of figures and screenshots. With SharePoint Online, we can keep all that material straight. With Office 365 version control, we never pick up the wrong version. We use alerts, too.

Office 365 reduces the hassle of working between two offices. I don’t store anything on my local computer anymore—it’s all on my team site. I never have to remember which computer I put particular files on. No more carting thumb drives back and forth, nor worrying about data loss if I drop my computer somewhere.

No small business knows how to run a server, nor do they want to. They want to run their business. What happens if somebody pushes the floor buffer into your server? You’ve lost your data. No small business can afford that. With Office 365, Microsoft hosts everything, and I no longer worry about reliability, security, or natural disasters. If Microsoft is down for a period of time, it pays you for your lost time. I have four servers sitting in a corner of my office that I haven’t turned on in months, nor do I want to.

The best part is, I’m no longer working as an unpaid server administrator. I’m a writer of technology textbooks, which is what I want to be. Eventually, I could figure it out, but I never wanted to apply the latest service pack to Windows Server, or remember to upgrade SQL Server first—or is it the other way around? Somebody does want to do that; let him or her do it for us in a Microsoft data center. And, yeah, I’m saving money on servers and software, too. Office 365 is a no-brainer.

Anyone need a server? Or four?

To learn more about David and his book, Office 365 in business, check out his website (build simply with SharePoint Online) or meet him in person on July 27!

Office 365 Launch Event Live Blog

Office 365 US Blog — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:02:28 GMT

Hi I'm Jose Gomez Cueto and I work in the Office 365 Product Marketing team. I am on site here at the Office 365 event in New York, and I’m excited to be bringing you a live look into today's events. Follow along here for more details from the morning and don’t forget tune in to watch Steve Ballmer take the stage at 10 a.m. ET.

We are here at the Skylight Soto in downtown New York. The press is already beginning to arrive, talking with assorted Microsoft employees and actual beta customers. The pic to the right is our Clint Patterson talking to customers from Bea's Insurance. Follow the link to read more about some of the customers using Office 365 today.

Here’s a pic of the inside our Elisa Graceffo demoing Office 365 to the press.

Loving the Jazz trio providing music for the event.

Steve Ballmer is it taking the stage and we are about to begin. You can watch live and I'll be capturing the main points below..

Steve: “Office is used by more than 1 billion people around the world.”

Steve: “We believe that effective collaboration is a matter of instant access to relevant information, ideas flowing freely and the right people taking the right action at the right time….the way we see it, great collaboration is critical to business growth.”

Steve: "It is impossible to overstate how important the small and medium sized segment is to the business world - they are responsible for nearly 2/3rds of global job growth and employ 1.5 billion people around the globe."

Steve: "We believe that the best collaboration technology should be available to everyone….without the requirement of a huge upfront investment or complex IT systems to manage and maintain."

It’s here – Steve just announced worldwide availability of Office 365.

Steve Ballmer has now passed the stage over to Kirk Koenigsbauer, CVP of Office Product Management for an Office 365 Demo.

Great Demo! People are loving the Lync Online Demo here in the room.

Kirk: “If you know how to edit word documents you can change your websites site look and feel.”

Steve Ballmer is now back on-stage, talking about some of our small business beta customers and how Office 365 has impacted their business.

Steve: “Some of the best companies on the planet already rely on our office cloud services and are excited about office 365.”

Steve: “Traveler’s Haven…can save $100,000 in IT expenses and cut out about 30 hours or work every day across the company. For Traveler’s Haven, that’s like increasing their staff by 30%.”

Steve: “The wise group in Scotland expects to cut travel costs and reduce carbon emissions by 30% after they retire 60 servers.” The CIO is turning the server room into a Jacuzzi suite.”… That’s great!

Steve: “There’s lots of opportunity out there to reach current and new customers – and to make that happen we’ll engage our massive global partner ecosystem.”

Steve: “Big-time partners – major telcos, leading hosters, and folks like Intuit – are packaging Office 365 with their services and delivering it to millions and millions of SMBs worldwide.”

Steve Ballmer is wrapping up. What do you think? Share your thoughts below and thanks for following!

The webcast is now available to be viewed on demand. If you missed it the first time or want to see it again, follow the link.

OK I’m off to meet with Latin American Press and customers! Thanks!

Top 10 Q&A: Getting Started With Office 365

Office 365 US Blog — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:57:18 GMT

We are one week post the Office 365 launch and are flattered and excited to see all the excitement on the web about our new service. Several customers have shared with us how Office 365 is already boosting productivity with estimated cost savings of up to 50%! I wanted to continue our top questions series, to answer some of the great questions as we’ve been receiving on getting started with Office 365 through Facebook, Twitter and right here on the Office 365 blog. Enjoy!

Q1: What is Office 365? Is it just “Office in the cloud”? Where can I learn more?

Office 365 is that and so much more! Office 365 combines the power of Office desktop apps with enterprise-grade e-mail, shared documents, instant messaging, and video and web conferencing (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online) in an always-up-to-date cloud service that is backed by Microsoft and some of the best partners in the world. Further, Office 365 bring access to the Office Web Apps, which enable you to view, share and edit your Microsoft Office documents on the web with virtually any device connected to the internet. These services combine to provide you with the most comprehensive productivity solution for your business needs. Watch our professionals and small business or enterprise demos to get a taste of these services all working together.

Q2: Which Office 365 plan is right for my business? Where can I find pricing information on these plans? Can I switch between the two later on?

Office 365 offers plans tailored to meet your business’s needs, whether you are a new business, an established organization, a small office or a multinational enterprise. Office 365 for professionals and small businesses (Plan P) is designed for organizations with fewer than 25 employees and is just $6 per user per month, while Office 365 for midsize businesses and enterprises (Plans E1-E4 and K1-K2) provides larger organizations the tools they want with the IT control, security and reliability you expect from Microsoft in a range of plans from $4 (K1) - $27 (E4). And if you are a smaller org with technical know-how, you’ll be happy to know that there are no minimum seat requirements for the enterprise plans, it works for orgs of one to thousands. The small business plan is capped at 50 users and not able to be transition later on. To find which is right for you, take a look at our professionals and small businesses and midsize businesses and enterprises placemats to compare the included features. For a more in depth analysis and feature list, see our Office 365 service descriptions.

Q3: I want to dig deeper into the detailed specs, features and capabilities of Office 365, such as mailbox sizes, cloud storage space, archiving, identity and details on security and service continuity policies in Office 365. What can I find this information?

The Office 365 service descriptions are your go-to source for the nitty-gritty details about our service. These docs contain information on each of our cloud services (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Office Web Apps and Office Pro Plus) as well as detailed information on Migration, Support, Identity and Security. You can also read our security whitepaper and check out the Office 365 trust center to read about our practices.

Q4: I’m interested in buying/trying Office 365, where should I start?

The best way to begin is to make sure your company’s hardware and software meets the minimum system requirements for Office 365. Then check out our Getting Started page which will get you setup to trial or buy your Office 365 service. To make the trial and purchase process as smooth as possible, we’ve provided the following resources:

- Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Product Guide: This high-level walkthrough will guide you through how to sign up for an Office 365 subscription and how to begin using some key features.

- Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Purchase and Support Guide: This guide will help you learn more about Office 365 for professionals and small businesses and how it can benefit your organization. The guide focuses primarily on the Office 365 commerce experience and will help you to buy and manage your Office 365 subscriptions.

- Office 365 for midsize businesses and enterprises Buyer’s Guide: Guiding customers through key decisions relative to online communication and collaboration solutions, including deciding if the cloud is right for your organization and how Office 365 for enterprises can meet your productivity needs.

From there, for customers getting started with Office 365 for small businesses, watch the Product Tour and read the Introduction for Office 365 administrators help article. You can also watch the User Tour or read the Quick Start Guide to learn more about the end user experience. For larger enterprises considering Office 365, the Enterprise Admin Tour and Introduction help articles are the place to start.

Q5: I would like help getting my business setup on Office 365. Where can I go to contact a partner in my area?

We designed the Office 365 Marketplace specifically to help our customers find trusted Microsoft Office 365 experts, applications and services that enhance and easily integrate with the Microsoft Office 365 suite of products.

Q6: I have a question or issue with Office 365, where can I get help?

We provide a variety of resources including the Office 365 Community and in product self-support for our small business customers as well as some additional features, including 24/7 phone support, for our enterprise plan subscribers. An overview of the available resources can be found on our website. The Office 365 help sites are also great resources to find answers to many of the common issues encountered in our service (Small Business Help | Enterprise Help).

Q7: I’m not familiar with how to move my custom domain over to Office 365. I want to use my own domain for my email (user@mydomain.com) and my public website (www.mydomain.com).

You can easily add your custom domain and use it for your Office 365 e-mail and/or public website. The below resources will walk you through this process, in either text or video form.

- Adding your domain to Office 365 for professionals and small businesses: Help Article | Custom Domain for Email Video | Custom Domain for Website Video

- Adding your domain to Office 365 for midsize businesses and enterprises: Help Article | Office 365 Technical Blog Post on most often asked questions

Q8: I’m not sure how to use SharePoint Online for my small businesses. Where can I learn more about it?

Our SharePoint Online Product Manager Ben Tamblyn has put together a great set of short videos posted to our blog explaining the service and how it can help your company be productive. If you want to dive into more how-to to understand how this works, take a look at the SharePoint Online Help & How-To section and watch these videos to learn more.

Similar help and video resources exist for Office 365 for Enterprises here and here respectively.

Q9: I am a BPOS Customer, where can I find information on the transition plans from BPOS to Office 365?

Our BPOS to Office 365 transition center has been newly updated with information on the next steps and a transition guide for a smooth move to our newest cloud service.

Q10: I have OLSB today – how Office 365 will affect me and when I can to move?

Microsoft Office 365 will replace Office Live Small Business (OLSB) as the comprehensive productivity service for small organizations. As Stephen shared last week, we will continue running the OLSB service through at least February 2012. OLSB customers do not need to take any action at this time. We will share more details about the transition later this year. Check out our OLSB transition center for the latest OLSB information and help content, including a self-transition guide for customers who want to move to Office 365 today.

Thanks, and leave a comment with any further questions you have on getting started with Office 365.

-Allen, Office 365 Product Manager