Microsoft straightens out cloud strategy

Things will get rowdier for vendors of cloud collaboration, communication and office productivity applications but that Microsoft plans to unleash a take-no-prisoners assault on the market with Office 365.

For some industry experts, Office 365 is proof that Microsoft has overcome its reluctance about the cloud model and its concern about cannibalizing its valuable on-premise software business.

As 2009 ended, Microsoft headed into but another year with confusingly branded and configured set of cloud-hosted office productivity, collaboration and communication suites.

Lingering as it had for several years was the question of when Microsoft would have a cloud suite as uniform, solid and successful as its on-premise productivity, collaboration and communication portfolio, anchored by Office, Exchange and Sharepoint.

In 2010, Microsoft delivered regular upgrades and new features for its Business Productivity Online Suite, which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting.

The collaboration

Office 365 combines the collaboration and communication components of BPOS with Office Web Apps and, alternatively, even with Office 2010. It is the broad cloud suite that experts have predicted for years Microsoft could build - and rock the market if priced and configured correctly.

Although Office 365 is in limited beta testing and won't be widely available until some point in 2011, its announcement changed the landscape. CIOs and IT chiefs evaluating cloud collaboration, productivity and communication suites however will have a unified alternative from Microsoft, a leading vendor of this type of software for on-premise deployments for over a decade, along with IBM/Lotus and Novell.

"Microsoft has made some very good progress," president of Osterman Innovation, Michael Osterman, said. "Office 365 is a pretty complete suite in terms of e-mail, calendar, task management, document collaboration, real time communications in short on."

Office 365 will consolidate in accordance with its brand various other communication and collaboration cloud offerings, including Live@edu, designed for educational institutions, and Office Live Small Business.

At US$10 per user per month, including reliable e-mail and responsive phone support, BPOS has worked very then for the Santa Clara, California company, its founder, Miles Kehoe, said.

He's looking forward to Office 365, whose Office, Exchange and SharePoint versions are based on the 2010 editions of the on-premise products, during BPOS applications are based on the 2007 editions. Office 365 as well upgrades Communications Online to its at once version, renamed Lync. "I can't wait," he said. "If I had a choice, we'd do it tomorrow."

Lot of buzz for its Apps suite

Rizzo gives Google credit for generating a lot of buzz for its Apps suite, which has been around for several years and is a sort of poster-child for cloud-hosted communication and collaboration software.

However, Microsoft remains unimpressed with the adoption of Google Apps, pointing to a [Gartner report published in August that said that Google Apps for Business -- formerly called Premier -- accounts for less than 1 percent of e-mail usage in enterprises], which Gartner defines as organizations with until further notice 100 users.

Google sees it differently, as the company loudly announces large deployments of Apps for Business as signs that the cloud model is the future. In that same report, Gartner praised Google for making "substantial progress in becoming a mainstream vendor" and said Apps' enterprise momentum has been "slow nevertheless steady."

In this manner, organizations can have hybrid cloud/on-premise deployments of Microsoft collaboration, productivity and communications wares, depending on their preferences and requirements, Rizzo said. "We provide choice and flexibility," he said.

Variety of configuration

With a variety of configuration and pricing options, Microsoft feels that Office 365 will appeal to organizations of all sizes. It will cost $US6 per user per month for companies with fewer than 25 employees, replacing Office Live Small Business.