Introduction to Office 365

We’ve made use of Windows Live SkyDrive since it was first released three years ago. A considerable amount of essential personal data and data at work has been stored there. Running applications right in the web browser is not anything new. Google has offered Google Docs since 2006 (through acquisition of another company). Roughly five years have passed, I still need Microsoft Office to be installed and run locally. Stripped down version of applications make sense for light editing. At the end, we still need ‘real’ productivity suite to get the work done. I guess that storing data in the cloud is still a relatively new concept to many people, thus giving business opportunities to companies such as Microsoft and Google.  We can now get a wide range of Windows Live services from Microsoft for free although Microsoft positions them as the complementary services for Windows experience. Take instant messenger for example, Microsoft has offered Windows Live Messenger (known as MSN Messenger previously) for many years. It does allow us to have a simple chat through text, voice or video. Those tools are not really optimized for businesses, being much more oriented to home users or consumers. Despite having the name of ‘Office’, I think ‘Office 365’ is more about collaboration, cloud storage, and online communication, rather than being a replacement of traditional desktop productivity suite.

I like e-mailing, it works and I must be the only person that likes servers, clients, bits of wire etc. But, yes, I also like virtual environments, though sometimes they are not the cheapest option. And sensitive data can't be protected as long as there is a connection to the internet.

I also like VPNs, they allow me to access all my files/servers from the internet, but surely that's not possible without office 365 lol

I never liked google docs, it has some nice basic features, but like most people I've spent a fair amount of time creating rich content and google docs doesn't.

All that said, I am looking forward to trying out office 365 and anything that means I don't need to install anything deserves some plus points.

I like it because i love mailing this release will support people like me.