My order here does not in any way signify importance, but you should be able to find the most important point for you in the list. It’s not difficult when you look at Office 365 to find multiple differentiators. I am a big fan of
Stephen Colbert, and it was recently announced he would be taking over the
Late Show with David Letterman. In honor of this achievement here is the Top Ten!
Value
Previously on
Office 365 when you purchased Office you only received the desktop applications. Now you get the applications and the services behind them. For Outlook, you get world-class business e-mail with synchronization of mail, calendars, and contacts. For Word, Excel, and PowerPoint you get SharePoint for all your document management. With the
Lync client, you get the Lync service for audio and video conferences to conduct online meetings. By the way, Lync will soon be called
Skype for Business. No more buying special versions of Office for your different computers Office 365 covers one user for five installations on PC or a Mac plus all the mobile applications.
Diversity
You don’t just get these applications for Windows. You get them for Mac too! Also, you get them for mobile phone and tablet platforms like iOS on the iPhone, iPad, and Android. Microsoft has over 50 apps in both the iOS and Android store.
OneNote
It was just announced a couple weeks ago that OneNote is now free for personal use. OneNote is single handedly the most productive item of my day. OneNote has knocked giants like
Evernote and Wondernote on their bottoms looking for help. If you haven’t checked it out do so, it will change your work life f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Storage
Every Office 365 user gets UNLIMITED file storage. Similar offerings by other storage providers cost $200.00 or more per year. With Office 365 it’s just part of the package! This storage is offered through the immensely popular application OneDrive, not to tie into number two too much, but it’s available on Windows, iOS, or Android.
Updates!
Office 365 gets updates without me doing anything. Heck a year ago I got an update to 1TB of storage, and I did nothing. As subscribers join, and the service gets better, new features and benefits are added. The best part is that I didn’t have to upgrade a server to get them. Some businesses have costly cycles of upgrading servers to get the latest and greatest, but with Office 365 updates and upgrades are built in with no downtime.
Free Training
Training is included with Office 365. Need to learn some basic tasks for using the applications?
Here you go! Use Office 2010 and want to find out what’s new with Office 2013?
Here you go! Decide to start using Office 365 and need some help setting it up?
Here you go! It’s much easier to call me, by the way, 850-226-4200 ;) Visit the Office 365 Learning Center for additional training.
Here
Support
Other cloud e-mail providers won’t get on the phone with you to save their lives, and they will charge you extra for support. With Office 365 you have 24x7 online and phone support.
Access
Not the application, but the ability to access Office 365 from anywhere. There are web versions of all the Office applications, and they live in the cloud that makes them even more accessible. When you run your applications and e-mail out of your office, you have to make sure nothing catastrophic happens at or to your office to cause downtime to servers or other infrastructure. With Office 365 you get cloud provided redundancy for things like internet and power that would be expensive. In fact, Office 365 has a 99.9% financially backed SLA. If they are down too long, they will give you money back! How’s that for standing behind your product?!
Office Add-Ons
Office 365 has become so successful other companies like
LinkedIn,
Docusign, and
Dropbox have developed their apps to work with the Office 365 service. In Office 365 I can connect with someone on LinkedIn through Outlook and then sign some important documents. These integrations make me more efficient and help our business run leader – and our CEO (
Notre Dame MBA graduate)
Vince Mayfield likes that.
Touch
Every Application for Office 365 is designed for a touch device. If I am using my Surface 3 or iPad I have a great 10 point multi-touch rich interface to get things done. Why should touch matter in an article about the cloud and Office 365 because it sets you and your business apart from your competitors! Having a sales and marketing team that can collaborate and showcase an image of a company that is current and future thinking and not still carrying around, 20LB IBM Thinkpads gives you an edge no matter what your industry.
Check out our
cloud infographic for even more useful info.