technical solutions and commentary

Microsoft is readying it’s next iteration of it’s Business Productivity Suite cloud service called Office 365, which provides Microsoft Software as a Service to subscribers. What’s great about the services is that it let’s business users connect to their applications and tools from any internet connection without having to first connect to corporate network using a VPN-client.

Depending upon the subscription chosen for the end users – they have the ability to connect to their company E-mail, Calendar, Instant Messaging and Online Meeting software, company Portal and Collaboration Sites and even Office Web-based Applications. A business also has the flexibility to subscribe to a portion of the applications through different service SKU’s. For enterprises that need to mix a public cloud service with their on-premise solutions, you can also build Hybrid solutions based on Microsoft systems located on-premise in a customers datacenter with Office 365 SaaS offerings.

Microsoft opened up the Office 365 Beta to the Public in mid-April, 2011. If you are considering Cloud computing for Software as a Service you should sign up for the beta here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/online-software.aspx