Office 365 is a subscription service line offered by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft Office product line. This brand includes plans that allow the use of Microsoft Office software over the life of a subscription, as well as cloud-based software as a service product for business environments, such as Exchange Server Hosting, Skype for Business Server, and SharePoint among others.. All Office 365 packages include automatic updates to their respective software at no additional cost, as opposed to the conventional license for these programs - where the new version requires the purchase of a new license.
After a beta test that began in October 2010, Microsoft launched Office 365 on June 28, 2011, as the successor to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), originally intended for corporate users. With the release of Microsoft Office 2013, Microsoft expanded Office 365 to include new plans aimed at different types of businesses, along with new plans aimed at general consumers, including benefits tailored to Microsoft consumer services such as OneDrive (whose integration with Office is a feature of 2013 suite).
In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, Office 365 revenue surpassed the sale of conventional Microsoft Office software licenses for the first time.
Video Office 365
Histori
Microsoft first announced Office 365 in October 2010; starting with a private beta with various organizations, leading to a public beta in April 2011, and achieving general availability on June 28, 2011. Facing an increasing competition from similar Google Apps Google services, Microsoft designed the Office 365 platform to "put together" online services (such as Business Productivity Online Suite) into "always-up-to-date cloud services" that combine Exchange Server (for e-mail), SharePoint (for internal social networking, collaboration, and public websites), and Lync ( for communications, VoIP, and conferences). The plan was originally launched for small businesses and companies; Small business plans are offered Exchange e-mail, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, web hosting through SharePoint, and Office Web Applications, with company plans also adding per-user licenses for Office 2010 Professional Plus software and 24/7 phone support. After the official launch of the service, Business Productivity Online Suite customers are given 12 months to plan and migrate them from BPOS to the Office 365 platform.
With the release of Office 2013, the latest version of the Office 365 platform was launched on February 27, 2013. The server components are updated to their 2013 version, and Microsoft extends Office 365 services with new packages, such as Small Business Premium, Midsize Premium, and Pro Plus. New Office 365 Home Premium packages intended for home users are also introduced; this new package offers access to the 2013 Office suite for up to five computers, along with an extended OneDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls each month. The plan is aimed at mainstream consumers, especially those who want to install Office on multiple computers. A University plan was also introduced, targeted to users who will enter into post-secondary education. With this new offering, Microsoft began offering Office 365 subscriptions to prepaid subscriptions through retail outlets along with the normal, non-subscription Office 2013 editions, which, when compared, are only licensed for use on a single computer.
On March 19, 2013, Microsoft detailed its plans to provide integration with the Yammer corporate social networking platform (which they acquired in 2012) for Office 365: such as the ability to use a single sign-on system between two services, shared feeds and documentation, and the ability to fully replace SharePoint news feeds and social functionality with Yammer. The ability to provide links to the Yammer network from the Office 365 portal was introduced in June 2013, with heavier integration (such as the Yammer app for SharePoint and single sign-on) to be introduced in July 2013.
On July 8, 2013, Microsoft launched Power BI, a suite of business intelligence tools and independent data mining tools for Office 365, to be released later this year. Power BI is primarily incorporated into Excel, enabling users to use Power Query tools to create spreadsheets and graphics using public and private data, and also geovisualize with Bing Maps data using the Power Map tool (previously available as a plug-in beta known as GeoFlow ). Users will also be able to access and publish reports, and perform natural language queries on the data. As a limited time offer for certain (but not excluding the US) markets, Microsoft also announces that those who purchase Office 365 Home Premium or University subscriptions before September 28, 2013 will receive a one-year free Xbox Live Gold subscription.
In March 2014, Microsoft announced that it would rename the "House Premium" package to "Home", and added a new "Personal" plan for a single user; this new option was officially launched on April 15, 2014.
As of June 2014, the amount of OneDrive storage offered to Office 365 customers is upgraded to 1 terabyte from 20 GB. On October 27, 2014, Microsoft announced that Office 365 customers will receive unlimited "OneDrive" storage. Due to general misuse and reduction in the storage options implemented by Microsoft, the 1 TB cap was restored in November 2015.
In June 2016, Microsoft made Planner available for public release. It is considered a competitor to Trello and other agile team collaboration cloud services.
In April 2017, Microsoft announced that when Office 2016 loses major support on October 13, 2020, access to OneDrive for Business, and servers hosted by Office 365 for Skype for Business, will become unavailable to those who do not use Office 365 ProPlus or Office eternal in mainstream support.
Maps Office 365
Features
The Office 365 service consists of a number of products and services. All Office 365 components can be managed and configured through a simple online portal; users can be added manually, imported from CSV files, or Office 365 can be set to single login with the local Active Directory using the Active Directory Federation Service. More advanced settings and features require the use of PowerShell scripts.
Outlook
The email service, task management, calendar apps, and contact manager that comes with business and enterprise Office 365 subscriptions are under Outlook on the web brand. These include Outlook Mail, Outlook Calendar, Outlook People, and Outlook Tasks.
Microsoft introduced an email feature called Clutter with Office 365. Clutter remembers user preferences as it concerns the relevance and importance of email. It analyzes user behavior patterns about email topics, if the user continues to ignore emails on a particular topic, Clutter moves those emails to a folder with the same name in Outlook. Users can enable and disable this feature by signing in to the Office 365 portal.
Hosted services
The business and enterprise-oriented plans for Office 365 offer access to versions of Office servers that cloud-hosted on software as a service base, including Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint, and browser-based Office Web Apps suite. Through the SharePoint OneDrive for Business function (formerly known as SharePoint MySites and SkyDrive Pro, and different from OneDrive consumer-oriented services), each user also receives 15 GB of online storage.
In lieu of Microsoft's corporate software, Home plans for Office 365 include premium upgrades for Microsoft's consumer-level online services, including 1-terabyte OneDrive storage for each user, along with 60 minutes of monthly phone calls on Skype VoIP's Microsoft service.
Office app
Some plans for Office 365 also include access to the current version of the Office desktop app for Windows (Office 2016) and OS X (Office for Mac 2016) for the subscription period. In the case of Office 2016 on Windows, it is installed using a "click-to-run" system that allows users to start using the app almost instantly when files are streamed in the background. Software updates are installed automatically, including security updates and new versions of Office. If your Office 365 subscription expires, the app enters read-only mode where editing functions are disabled. Full functionality is restored after new subscriptions are purchased and activated.
Access to the Office Mobile app for Android and iOS devices (including smartphones and tablets) was initially limited to Office 365 customers but basic editing and document creation have been made free for personal use. However, Office 365 is still required to unlock certain advanced editing features, using apps on devices with screens larger than 10.1 inches, or using apps for business use. The Outlook Group is also available as an application in Windows 10 Mobile.
Collaboration tools
Office 365 includes several productivity applications designed to cover collaborative needs at the organizational, departmental and team level. Currently, the list of collaboration tools includes OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, Skype for Business, Outlook Online, and Delve board. A variety of tool options is a source of ongoing debate about the purpose of each of their optimal tools and applications in real business life. There are several approaches to defining the role of Office 365 collaboration tools within an organization. Key aspects that affect a particular tool's choice are specific communication needs, team size, project specifications, and employee preferences. According to the use case approach, each collaboration tool conforms to a specific collaboration scenario. SharePoint Online often serves as a platform for corporate intranets and portals in the same way as SharePoint On-Premises. At the same time, SharePoint Online comes not only with team sites but also with communication sites and hub sites (First Office 365 Release customers will be able to try it in the first half of 2018). Microsoft Teams allows collaboration channels for public or private communications, as well as voice and video conferencing. Outlook Online hosts an email-based collaboration. Yammer works for communication with business users outside the organization and allows corporate communications that are similar to forums and teams. Skype for Business supports instant messaging, VoIP, audio, video, and web conferencing. As for the Delve boards, they allow creating boards to group together and share related documents. In addition, there are Office 365 Groups that better represent the technological capabilities in a suite rather than a separate tool. The Office 365 group allows creating a separate collaboration space in other Office 365 tools. The Office 365 group can be set up in Outlook, SharePoint Online, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and other collaboration tools to diversify the native collaboration capabilities of this app. For example, if a team collaborates within a Group in Yammer, its members automatically get team calendars, shared Outlook inbox, SharePoint libraries, SharePoint team sites, NotNote SharePoint logs and Plugins shared.
Update
The Office 365 platform uses a rolling release model; updates for online components of the service are provided once per quarter. At launch, the server version of 2010 version is used with Office 365. The service is automatically upgraded to their Office 2013 counterparts after it was released in February 2013. With the introduction of Office 2013, the head of Office division Kurt DelBene stated that a small and incremental update of Office desktop software will be provided periodically the same for all Office 365 users using a streaming system, as opposed to the three-year cycle for major Office releases that have been used in the past.
Microsoft began deploying Office 2016 in September 2015.
Office 365 Education
Office 365 Education , formerly Office 365 for Education and Microsoft Live @ edu , is a free suite of hosted Microsoft services and apps targeted for educational needs.
The program provides educational institutions with a suite of hosted collaboration services, communications tools, and mobile, desktop, and web-based apps, as well as data storage capabilities. This package includes Microsoft applications for collaboration including: Live Office Workspace, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft SharedView Beta, Microsoft Outlook Live, Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live Alerts.
This package is part of Microsoft Education Solutions. With Microsoft Live ID, students can login and access multiple Microsoft applications such as Outlook Live, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Mobile and more. Universities, colleges, and schools can enroll in the program through a free admission process.
In 2012 Live @ edu moved under the umbrella of Microsoft Office 365 services. Former Outlook Live Answers portal, a forum to ask questions about Live @ edu services, was discontinued on December 17, 2012. The transition is due to be completed by September 2013.
Security
In December 2011, Microsoft announced that the Office 365 platform now complies with the security standards of ISO/IEC 27001, the EU Data Protection Guidelines (through the signing of the model clause), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for the health care environment in the United States. At the same time, Microsoft also launched a new "Trust Center" portal, which contains more information about its privacy policy and its security practices for the service. In May 2012, Microsoft announced that Office 365 now complies with the Federal Information Security Management Act: adherence to that action will now allow Office 365 to be used by US government agencies.
Regardless of the claim to comply with European data protection standards, and regardless of the existing Safe Harbor agreement, Microsoft has acknowledged that it will not refrain from submitting data stored on European servers to US authorities under the Patriot Act.
In Finland, the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority has warned Office 365 users about scaffolding and piercing, which diverted millions of euros to criminals.
Packages
Office 365 is available in a number of different subscription packages targeted at different needs and market segments, providing a different set of features at different price points. These include:
- Private : Includes access to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Publisher & amp; Microsoft Access for home/non-commercial use on one computer (PC or Mac) plus access to premium features on a single tablet (Android, iOS or Windows RT, full Windows number as computer) or phone. Additional benefits include 1 TB of additional OneDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype international calls per month (depending on area). The Personal version purchased with a four-year discount package, known as Office 365 University , allows the use of two devices by a single user, available to those in post-secondary institutions. Microsoft also offers Office 365 subscriptions to institutional students who have Office software licensed for their faculty.
- Home page (formerly Home Premium): Aimed at consumers and the main family; same as Personal, but for use on up to five devices up to five users.
- Business Basics (formerly Small Business): Offers access to Exchange hosted, SharePoint, and Lync services, and Office Online for Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote-based versions of the web.
- Business : Offers desktop applications for Mac and PC for up to five computers per user, without Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync Online online services.
- Business Premium (formerly Small Business Premium): Combination of Business and Business plan Important.
- ProPlus : Offers access to Office 2016 Professional Plus apps on up to five devices per user.
- Medium Business : Aimed at businesses with 10-300 employees. Access is offered to the Office 2013 app from ProPlus, plus Exchange hosted, SharePoint, and Skype for Business services. Not available anymore.
- Enterprise : Aimed for use in corporate environments. Offers access to all Office applications, Exchange host, SharePoint, and Skype for Business services, plus enterprise-specific legal compliance features and support.
- Office 365 operated by 21Vianet : Microsoft has licensed 21Vianet to provide Office 365 services to its customers in China. Microsoft does not operate Office 365 in China, but instead of Vianet. The services differ in features of the services offered elsewhere.
Comparison
Reception
TechRadar provides 2013 Office 365 4.5 update of 5, praising its administrative interface to be accessible to users with any level of expertise, integration of SkyDrive Pro into Office 2013 desktop applications, and overall services to be suitable in small business environments, while still offers "powerful" options for use in larger companies (such as data loss protection and the ability to integrate with local Active Directory instances). However, this service is heavily criticized for the way it handles 2013 updates for existing users, and the lack of integration with services such as Skype and Yammer.
References
Further reading
External links
- Official website
- Office 365 for Government organizations
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments