Microsoft unwraps sysadmin-friendly Office 365 for biz update One month after lifting the curtain on the updated version of its Office 365 subscription service for home users, Microsoft has officially launched the equivalent service for business customers with three new offers for small and midsized companies. Microsoft debuted Office 365 in 2011 as a set of subscription-based, hosted …
The pricing does seem a little on the steep side for businesses. Especially as there are plenty that don't want (or can't have for regulatory and legal reasons - the entire NHS anyone?) cloud storage of all their emails and documents.
Anybody know what your friendly local distributor can offer you on pricing? Surely it can't just be list price direct from Microsoft or nothing?
Its a 'menu' option if you want to be able to Install the full version or not. An Office 365 install is intelligent and allows up to 5 client installs - and you can move your 5 installs to different devices as required. It's also incredibly fast to install even on a limited internet link. Microsoft's streaming application install technology is amazing. You can be starting to use Office in under a minute and it continues to install in the background!
When will MS get it?
Where the apps are hosted and run from are only a minor consideration, compared to...WHERE THE DATA ITSELF GETS ROUTED!!!
No much of an issue when writing a thank you letter to Aunty Mildred, but if you need to type up a letter to the CEO about the fatal flow in multi-billion dollar product X we sell to the Air Force? Yessiree...lets do that in a office app that routes through the cloud...what could possibly go wrong!
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"When will MS get it?
Where the apps are hosted and run from are only a minor consideration, compared to...WHERE THE DATA ITSELF GETS ROUTED!!!"
I think you've misunderstood what they're trying to sell you here ... you don't NEED to store your data in their cloud service. No'one's making you.
I remember the stink that got kicked up when they went from licensing per user to licensing per device, once PCs got cheap and people started having one or more each rather than sharing.
One of my larger customers doesn't like the idea at least; because of shift work they have a more than a few thousand devices that are shared and will require multiple licences per device instead of just the one. Will be interesting to see how they react.
>>Users have total control over where documents are stored, no cloud required
You already do.
>>No restriction on transferring licenses between users and machines
I guess the problem here is that it's much harder to enforce, and we all know how a single copy of Windows will get reinstalled everywhere given half the chance.
The other thing is, if you look around you'll find the subscription model is the one which is taking over - hosting, source control, storage, bug-tracking, music, netflix, yada yada. I agree that the idea of the office suite being an installed app is deeply ingrained so it feels weird but maybe that's where everything is going. Or maybe it's just this decade's trend and it will revert when we get bored of it.
It might be worth pointing out that existing Office 356 subscribers won't be upgraged immediately to Office 2013. We'll get upgraded "throughout" 2013 at a timescale determined by Microsoft.
I signed up for Office 365 a couple of months ago. I expect to see my system upgrade happen sometime before Christmas.
It won't because it's NOT FREE FOR WORK UNLESS YOU HAVE OFFICE ALREADY. Yeah, that's a FACT.
Here, I'll even show you what to read before your make another embarrassing post: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/office/ee815687.aspx
"Get Office Web Apps
Business customers licensed for Microsoft Office 2010 through a Volume Licensing program can run Office Web Apps on-premises on a server running Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010."
Don't let your reading comprehension problem hit you again in the face publicly next time...
You moron, that's the Office WebApps installable for SharePoint Server for running ON-PREMISES as it very clearly says.
Not the TOTALLY FREE Office WebApps that Microsoft host online and can be used by anyone without any version of Office installed. URL as above...
I understand that you are unable to follow even a fairly simple conversation but then please, at least remain silent.... the original article as well as my first post was - and this entire discourse still is - CLEARLY about Google Apps at WORK. Y'know, the place where people go to do something that in turn generates something for someone/s (money/heat/porn/whatever) - are you following me?
If so then check the "URL as above" - there's this WORK button... quick, click it!
There you go: http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/business/compare-office-for-business-plans-FX102918419.aspx
Yes, you are indeed hopelessly clueless yet loudmouthed, that is the said truth.
The bottom line is its all about generating the greatest amount of revenue from the same amount of licenses,monthly subscriptions does this to a tee and it brings in regular guaranteed income.The fact its not what the customer wants.......well that a customer misinterpretation of the basic advantages of globally connected,cloud based and team accessible services using integrated products isnt it Humphrey?
This is actually quite punishing to non-corporate home users and small businesses. No really new features in over a decade..... No real alternatives for addicts or those bred on Office, although LO is progressing.
IMHO it will lead to an increase in cracked versions and torrents. If the Chinese can and have been doing so for years there's nothing to stop the west following... Here in S America I'm shocked at how many cracked copies of Win7 & Office and routinely included on new computers at legit sellers.
Either that or VM's with ready-to-go Office installs easily being exchanged... I can only see this type of black market increasing in the EU & USA as people tighten their wallets in coming years.... especially in countries with austerity!
@TheVogon
Interesting. Anyone have experience of VM's in Win8 yet?
Presumably you can still run a cracked MS-Office in a cracked XP / Win7 OS in a VM under Win8?
...More reasons to hope Win8 sales are so low that Win7 is kept alive as XP was....
Yes you could do that in a VM. However I would fail then to see to point of bothering with Windows 8 at all...
It might be like most DRM that Windows 8 will eventually be cracked and that there will be a cat and mouse game as Microsoft patch any exploits, or block you from updates / the Windows store, etc. There are some current crack attempts, but they still don't properly activate the product or let you use the Windows store.
With secure boot, and signed everything, Microsoft are making it very hard to the point where people will buy it rather than take the effort to crack it imo.
@TheVogon
"I would fail then to see to point of bothering with Windows 8 at all..."
Agree. But I was thinking about friends, family other relations that buy a PC and have Win8 foisted upon them... Then call me up to fix the problem....
Ok, we deal with many small businesses, most of whom LOVE their little handy and neat (ok not without the odd quirk) SBS 2003 servers.
Now and again they will buy a new PC and a new copy of office, problem! Office Home and Business will install but Outlook 2013 wont work with Exchange 2003. No downgrade rights for Office 2010 so the customer is cornered into upgrading their server, oh look, Exchange is missing from SBS or rather the equivalent small business versions of Server 2012 so they have to buy ADDITIONAL licenses and hardware to run an on premise Exchange solution, none of which they want, nor have the budget to do!
Oh wait, there is of course an answer, buy a VLA minimum 5 credits of 5 copies of Office Standard which is a good £100 more than the Home and Small Business, cornered again.
Most of my customers are NOT happy and feel trapped, they dont want cloud as in the legal industry they have to prove security and in the cloud you dont really know where your data is and you cannot vet the security to fill out the endless compliance forms can you?!
So, its my conclusion that Microsoft no longer want these people as customers, maybe they are too small, not worth the effort.
I can see piracy on the up for copies of Office 2010 across the board and Small Businesses looking for other options.
Now I learn more about 365 Pro I can see why SBS2011 is the end of the SBS everything-on-the-one box.
Small business buys a server for administration and a mixture of local and cloud storage of files and gets office 365 for the Exchange functionality and local office install. Another advantage for MS would be an end to the trickery that was required to get the server roles that expected to run on different servers to coexist on one.
As you pointed out, this is not good for the legal industry, but probably ok for small wholesale distibution, car sales, light industry. But then the legal industry ought to be able to afford the higher costs of a on-site Exchange server and storage.
Had a look at Technet last night. There are scenarios and methodologies described for moving from SBS to 2012 Essentials and exchange in the cloud but none for moving to Server 2012 and Exchange on site. It's like they don't want to consider the idea let alone support it.
I wonder how the licencing works with Citrix? Do the five 'device' licences count for each server you log into, or on a farm basis. And if its the former, can you scriptamagically bin the licences off when the session ends. Because I'm not sure the other way works either, especially if you have a dynamically spawning virtual farm based on load.
MS licencing blows.
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