Friday, 3 October 2014

What You Need To Know About Office 365

By Alex D White


After introducing Office 365, Microsoft has received plenty of publicity on the service. As such, you might be wondering if the service is right for you, a client, or your organization. Office 365 is basically the cloud version of Microsoft. You can connect with it on the internet, set up an account, make a subscription, download the necessary files and start working. You do not need any installation disks. You may want to know a few things about office 365 in order to know if it is for you.

The main distinguishing feature about the new service is the cloud. Cloud is a term used in the IT industry to describe an off site file hosting service. With Microsoft, you upload the files you want to use and synchronize them with Windows Sky Drive, which is cloud for Microsoft. You can then access them later on when needed from any location or device that has no office.

By now, you have probably gotten used to the desktop version of office. A couple of distinguishing features come with Office 365, including the office web apps. These applications are linked to SkyDrive via the internet. With office web apps, you can be able to access your files and edit them from any device without changing the format.

Office 365 goes hand in hand with a compatible operating system. You can use it with windows 7 or 8 or OS X10.6 on Mac or later versions. In addition, you also need to have an internet connection in order to install it, activate and manage your subscriptions. Some of the browsers that are compatible with the service include Chrome 18, Safari 5, Firefox 12 and IE 9.

The subscription costs for the service will depend on the size of your organization. Fortunately, you can subscribe for the service with a business of 25 or less users. There are various subscriptions plans, and you can decide to pay on either a monthly basis or yearly. In simple terms, the small business premium plans are designed for twenty-five users or less, midsize business premium is meant for 25 to 300 users, and the enterprise premium plan accommodates 300 plus users.

The best thing about office 365 is the fact that you can still use it with Office 2010 or 2013. Unfortunately, if you are using office 2007, you may have to tolerate some lost functionality, but the service will still work. If you want to install the service to share files, you can upload the files on SkyDrive and then invite your contacts to view them without necessarily installing the service.

For you to maximize the service, you still need to install it on your computer even though office web apps are free. Office web apps have great benefits, including allowing you to view files and edit them on devices that do not have office. This does not make it a substitute for office 365 or the regular desktop version of office. There a number of things you cannot do with only the office web apps like viewing your files on multiple devices with no office.

For most people worried about security, as you are, the service provides a similar Trust Center and user-level security as the desktop version. With this, you can set permissions through the Rights Management Service that supports encryption. As such, you are provided with a reasonable level of user security.




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