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Microsoft moves to Office 365 in the cloud |
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Microsoft has announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office 365, its cloud service that offers Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online as an always-up-to-date cloud service available for a monthly subscription.  The beta was introduced last year, with over 200,000 organizations testing it. Microsoft said businesses using Office 365 have reported reduced IT costs by up to an estimated 50 percent, besides a boost in productivity. With the arrival of the production version, over 20 providers globally have shared plans to offer Office 365 to customers this year, including Bell Canada, Intuit Inc., NTT Communications Corp., Telefonica S.A., Telstra Corp. and Vodafone Group Plc agreeing to package and sell Office 365 with their own services for small and midsize businesses.Office 365 has collaborative features already found on competing cloud based productivity suites such as Google Apps and Zoho. Service plans have a price ranging from $2 to $27 per user per month, with the $6 per user, per month plan allowing small businesses to get up and running with Office Web Apps, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and an external website quickly. “Great collaboration is critical to business growth, and because it’s so important, we believe the best collaboration technology should be available to everyone,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “With a few clicks, Office 365 levels the playing field, giving small and midsize businesses powerful collaboration tools that have given big businesses an edge for years.” Reports in the media, however, were skeptical about the success of Office 365, with some saying that it could cannibalize the office productivity market for Microsoft Office, Microsoft's biggest contributer of revenues, even as an article on CNET quoted Kurt DelBene, President of Microsoft's Office division dispelling that notion by saying that Office 365 was created as a focused offering for specific business segments. Other reports said the offering was essentially viable only on a Windows desktop environment as it had functional and compatibility issues when used on other platforms such as Linux, iOS or mobile operating systems such as Android or BlackBerry. |
LISTS AND RESEARCH
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Global Software Top 100 - Edition 2011
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Software industry trends (2011)
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- Top hardware companies
- A list of the world's largest hardware companies.
- What happens in the hardware industry?
- Trends and analysis of the hardware industry and its key players.
- Top IT services companies
- A list of the world's largest IT services companies, ranked by annual services revenues. This link will take you to www.servicestop100.org.
- IT services companies: healthy growth
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CRM companies: a short list
- A short list of the leading software companies selling Customer Relationship Management software; aimed at IT managers looking to purchase CRM software.
- Top software companies in the US (2010)
- A list of the largest software companies in the United States, ranked by annual software revenues. 2010 Edition, posted 15 December 2010.
- U.S. software industry trends (2010)
- A research publication discussing the trends and the key players in the software industry in the United States. Posted 15 December 2010.
- Top companies in the world (not just software)
- A general list of the largest companies in the world, ranked by revenues. Not just software companies; in fact, there are no software companies in it...
- Top IT companies
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