by Brett

The Office 365 For Small Business and Enterprise plan is a great value for small businesses. Considering there are at least 3 million small businesses with 5 employees or less, Microsoft can expect to gain a ton of users. Training will be available at Office365training.com (not affiliated with Microsoft) for end users and plan administrators.

This article details the difference between the E and P plans. Many of the differences are important and hard to identify. For many small businesses, the P1 plan is a great fit. For others, you may want to choose the E plans - this document will help you make an informed decision about which is best for you.

Microsoft can and does update the services regularly, so while I’ve checked and re-checked the details, the services and capabilities do change.

by Brett

Lately, there has been a lot of talk online about “the cloud.” Everywhere you turn, lively conversations about cloud services, moving to the cloud, cloud this, and cloud that seem to assume we all understand what “the cloud” means. Practically and simply expressed, “the cloud” means “available through/on the internet.”(Techies Take Note: Exceptions abound, but for purposes of this discussion, this definition suffices.

by Brett

Office Professional Plus , a high-end version of Microsoft Office 2010, was previously available only through a Microsoft licensing agreement. Now, businesses can enjoy Office Pro Plus with the purchase of a monthly subscription, which includes the 2010 versions of Word, Access, Excel, Onenote, PowerPoint, Lync 2010, InfoPath, Outlook, Publisher, and SharePoint Workspace. According to the service description, you can purchase a single copy for use on five devices. Each device is intended to serve the same user.

by Brett

Office 365 is a set of cloud services available on a subscription basis from Microsoft. You can buy the service directly from Microsoft or through a Microsoft Partner.  All the services include the core services; email, shared calendar, document management, team collaboration, mobile access, instant messaging, online meetings, and presence. This article is intended to give you a straightforward description of the basic services without the “marketing spin” you will see from Microsoft.

by Brett

Office 365 Jumpstart videos for IT Pros posted to Technet.

For the past year, Microsoft has been working to get Microsoft Partners and others up to speed on Office 365. Recently, they recorded the presentations and packaged them as the Office 365 Jumpstart.  The sesions listed below (plus several on virtualization) are available for your Office 365 edification. These are technical presenations rather than marketing. You'll see demos and hear from the people driving the services behind the scenes. 

In contrast to low quality screen captures from a webcast, these videos are crisp. There are multiple cameras, and much of the presenation is the speaker rather than a slide deck.  In addition, Adam Carter in DPE servers as a moderator with the presenter and asks questions to keep things moving along.

For those of you looking for some depth technical guidance, this is a good resource.

Topics include:

• SharePoint Online Extensibility and Customization
• Office 365 Deployment Overview
• Lync Online Overview and Configuratin for IT Pros
• Exchagne Online Archiving and Compliance
• Hybrid Options with Exchange Server and Exchange Online
• Office 365 Administration and Automation Using Windows Powershell
• Microsoft Office 365 Identity and Access Solutions
• Microsoft Office 365 Directory Syncrhonization
• SharePoint Online Overiew
• SharePoint Online Administration
• Microsoft Staged Exchange Online Migration