Cloud Productivity with Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 combines the familiar and trusted communication (Exchange Online) and collaboration (SharePoint Online and Lync Online) software into the cloud. In addition, the same Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office applications you know now work seamlessly with this cloud service.

Microsoft’s three-screen strategy extends the cloud to the PC, browser, and the phone. This means that the software, devices, phones, and browsers already in your arsenal all work in harmony to give your workers access to information anytime, anywhere. With presence on all three screens — and all portals pointing to the cloud — businesses and consumers become more productive and efficient as the cloud becomes a part of their daily lives.

As a cloud productivity solution in one place, Microsoft Office 365 offers service plans for professionals and small businesses, mid-size businesses and enterprises, and the education community. All plans are designed to help an organization’s business needs for security, reliability, and productivity.

Analyze Office 365 for professionals and small businesses plan (Plan P)

This pay-as-you-go set of web-enabled tools allows users to access e-mail, documents, calendar, contacts, and online meetings on any device, any time, from anywhere for $6 per user, per month, for businesses not needing more than 50 users or accounts. Subscription to Plan P includes the following key features:

• Exchange Online for e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Mailbox storage is allocated at 25GB with e-mail attachments up to 25 MB

• Office Web Apps for online viewing and basic editing of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote

• SharePoint Online for collaboration and creating a professional-looking public-facing website

• Lync Online for instant messaging, online meetings, PC-to-PC audio and video calls, and presence

• Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange provides premium antivirus and anti-spam protection

• Online community support only, no phone support

Break down the Office 365 for mid-size businesses and enterprises plan (E Plans)

The enterprise family of plans for Office 365 comes in four versions (E1 through E4) with prices ranging from $10–$27 per month, per user. The enterprise version comes with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Professional Plus. Here are the cost (per user, per month) for the subscription and the key features associated with each of these plans.

Answer the needs of the kiosk workers (K Plans)

If you own a retail chain or run a business with “deskless” workers, you don’t have to leave these workers out from the benefits of using Office 365. Deskless workers, shift workers, retail store employees, truck drivers, and similar employees who use shared PCs, have minimal collaboration requirements, and limited communication needs can be signed up with the Kiosk Worker Plans (K1 and K2).

For $4 per user per month, a K1 plan provides users without a dedicated PC access to web e-mail, internal SharePoint sites, and online viewing of Office documents through the Office Web Apps. There is a limit of 500MB of mailbox storage per user for this plan.

For $10/user/month, a K2 plan provides the same features as the K1 plan plus basic editing functionality of Office documents through the Office Web Apps.

Examine the Office 365 for education plan (Academic Plans)

Office 365 for education provides educational institutions simple-to-use and easy-to-administer cloud-based productivity tools. With the same enterprise class security, reliability, and privacy, educational institutions can have the cloud on their terms backed by the same robust security and guaranteed reliability enterprise customers enjoy.

The family of A (academic) plans offers free subscriptions to students who only need access to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Web Apps. For faculty and staff, the fee ranges from $6/month/user to $16/month/user.