Office 365

[DaveB]

Three months after I signed up for it I have just recieved a Beta account for Microsoft Office 365.

So far my reaction has been

Anyone else played with it?

[JamJarST]

Three months after I signed up for it I have just recieved a Beta account for Microsoft Office 365.

So far my reaction has been

Anyone else played with it?

Just signing up to the Beta now, so will let you know my thoughts.

[redgiant]

I have been using it for about a month now for my LTD's mailboxs and the occasional lync meeting (the 2010 version of OCS) - I’ve used OCS quite a bit at my last two clients so it's good having something familiar to use that isn't a PITA to setup in meeting invites. Also having access to the latest version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote online is great where the client’s estate is not very well maintained or up to date (not sure if the web apps run in IE6 though!).

IMO I think it's a good package and a real competitor to Google Apps which I always found to be very clumsy to work with, doesn’t open the documents correctly (especially excel spreadsheets) and easy to get lost in the interface. The worst part of Office 365 I’ve found is the admin interface as it's overly simplistic and difficult to navigate round.

At £4 (per user per month) on the small business rate I think it's a good deal – also it’s free until September on the public beta if anyone else wants to try it out.

[Netraider]

I have been on the full version of google apps for about 6 months. I am currently demoing 365 to see if it worth my while moving. I use Office Mac 2011, and it seems to work well so far.

[d000hg]

Is it fully online, or does it require a plugin or local software to be installed?

[JamJarST]

Is it fully online, or does it require a plugin or local software to be installed?

It appears to be both. You can edit the files with the online Office apps or with PC based versions. It uses Sharepoint to handle a lot of this. I can't get it to work with my Office apps but that may or may not be related to their "legality"

[redgiant]

Is it fully online, or does it require a plugin or local software to be installed?

There are elements of both.

• It offers a hosted exchange server (with the usual web access) this can of course be configured with Outlook 2007 and 2010 (older clients may work as well)
  
• Lync 2010 (there are x86 and x64 clients for this to install and it links with Office 2007 or 2010 if you have them installed.
  
• The office web apps and sharepoint are web based however with the enterprise licence model they do include office 2010 professional plus that can be installed. I'm not sure how this is managed or costs as I only have the small business licence model in my beta.

[redgiant]

Office 365 has just gone out of beta. If you were on the beta then you have 30days before you need to sign up for a rolling contract.

I had a look at the pricing plans and it's £4 per user per month on the small business package.

Also I noticed that it doesn't officially support IE6 which is a little dissapointing (some clients are STILL stuck on it) but expected.