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Microsoft Launches Office 365 Cloud Suite

Posted by Unknown on from the half-the-features-but-cloud-cloud-cloud dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft took its cloud suite Office 365 out of beta today and the opinion mongers are in overdrive. Is Office 365 missing features, is it too complex, or should it be taken seriously? And how does it stack up against Google Apps?"

33 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Dealbreaker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It can't open my old Final Cut Pro projects.

  2. We use it here by liquidweaver · · Score: 5, Informative

    and have been for the last two months. I use linux on my desktop, it's nice to be able to have access to the web apps, since I can't very well install the software. Also, the big thing you need to consider when deploying this - If you use the migration tool and link your AD accounts with Office365, you cannot ever get rid of your local AD because you won't be able to manage your users. We chose to export each user to a PST, and import their PST's into their new Office365 account now that we are one step closer to dumping our expensive and bloated local MS infrastructure.

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    1. Re:We use it here by liquidweaver · · Score: 2

      Also, it IS possible to remove synced users. You run a tool buried in the folder structure of the sync utility, set a flag in the registry for the tool to do a full sync, and have it sync with an empty OU. Works like a champ.

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    2. Re:We use it here by liquidweaver · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What is it adding over Google apps in your case? It seems to me that if you want to reliably migrate away from MS infrastructure that would be more of a step in the right direction, wouldn't it? Won't your marketing people miss man of the top end features of powerpoint in any case?

      Well, we did try out google apps. I like it, but I got overruled :) The main complaints with google apps - No Lync No web app versions of Word, Excel, etc ( I'll admit, I like having this option, since I cannot install them and sometimes OO/LO doesn't cut it) My main complaints against 365 - Google apps is cheaper, and accomplishes most everything we did before with a local Exchange deployment It's Microsoft People might start putting data into the lockbox that is Sharepoint. It's a nightmare migrating data out of there, and we had been down that road before.

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    3. Re:We use it here by lymond01 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not the original poster, but one advantage of Office365 is that you can tie it in with the Cloud AD. The MS infrastructure hardware is run somewhere else to manage your systems, and you use the same authentication for Office 365 access. And as the user mentioned there's Lync which is chat/video like Google, but also allows VOIP, voicemail transcription, etc.

    4. Re:We use it here by djlowe · · Score: 3, Informative

      Clicked Submit by mistake. The rest of this: We're looking at cloud services as an adjunct, and *maybe* a replacement for our current backup scheme... but nothing more than data backup, ever.

      We already have the needed hardware/infrastructure, personnel, recovery in place to ensure 24/7 operations, and we cannot risk losing control of that, as millions of dollars in service contracts with SLAs, etc., would be at stake if we did so.

      For us, "the cloud" means in current parlance: "Store all your mission critical data on third-party storage, and then have to rely upon them for availability that we've not only already created, but cannot ultimately ensure nor control, regardless of contracts with them".

      And that's just the operational/production side of the equation. Then there's security issues, privacy issues, etc.

      Sorry, ain't gonna happen, not any time soon.

      Call me old-fashioned, but all things considered, a "mass migration" to the cloud, company-wide would be a very bad thing for us at this point, despite internal pressure: I've had sales people in our company ask "So, when are we moving everything to the cloud?"... as though that was a magical solution to our problems: We're growing, rapidly, you see, and they see it as a "magic bullet" to address file server storage constraints, mailbox size limitations (one of our sales person's Exchange mailbox is 4GB... and he refuses to archive it, despite his own admission that he's not needed the email dating back nearly 8 years, ever).

      Attempts to explain that doing so would involve the need for enormous increases in external bandwidth at all of our offices, with commensurate cost to ensure availability fall on deaf ears: For them, bandwidth is "magic" - they get faster Internet access at home, you see, and repeatedly tell us that, and they simply cannot understand why we don't switch to "local consumer broadband provider" for all of our needs, based upon their experience at home.

      Anyway: Moving to the cloud might be viable for some companies, but it's not for us.

      Regards,

      dj

    5. Re:We use it here by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      Someone should start a petition to our slashdot overlords to allow use of the blink tag. It would be incredibly funny to see all the bright and shiny rounded corner Web 2.1+ crap being defiled by crappy blinking text everywhere, even if only for a day or two.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:We use it here by MikeDaSpike · · Score: 2

      The only use for the blink tag:
      Schrödinger's cat is <blink>not<blink> dead.

  3. Who do you want reading your docs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who do you want reading your docs? Google or Microsoft?

    Neither, thanks.

  4. Sharepoint 2010 - Core of the Business Web Apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We adopted MSFT's big-brand business suite, SharePoint 2010, several months before it launched last May. It took a full 6 months to set up the environment, plus additional time to make it even remotely useful for the enterprise. The level of in-house expertise and infrastructure needed to make a business run on MSFT products (Outlook, SharePoint, etc) is obscene.

    And it's quickly becoming outdated, sorry MSFT.

    At another business (I switched, thankfully!), we use Google Enterprise. The level of support we need to provide for e-mail and document collaboration is radically lower and feels fundamentally different. Instead of FIGHTING with our systems to keep them online, we can innovate and develop new and cool things because our time doesn't disappear into the black hole of "Correlation ID errors" and arcane Outlook glitches.

    MSFT, I hope you learn what it means to provide cloud services, and do provide a worthy competitor to Google and other providers! Then, we'd have some exciting innovation! In the meantime, pah... sorry guys. I know you work VERY hard. But PLEASE tell Ballmer to step aside so you can do something that isn't designed by the Corporate Committee!

    1. Re:Sharepoint 2010 - Core of the Business Web Apps by liquidweaver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We adopted MSFT's big-brand business suite, SharePoint 2010, several months before it launched last May. It took a full 6 months to set up the environment, plus additional time to make it even remotely useful for the enterprise. The level of in-house expertise and infrastructure needed to make a business run on MSFT products (Outlook, SharePoint, etc) is obscene.

      And it's quickly becoming outdated, sorry MSFT.

      At another business (I switched, thankfully!), we use Google Enterprise. The level of support we need to provide for e-mail and document collaboration is radically lower and feels fundamentally different. Instead of FIGHTING with our systems to keep them online, we can innovate and develop new and cool things because our time doesn't disappear into the black hole of "Correlation ID errors" and arcane Outlook glitches.

      MSFT, I hope you learn what it means to provide cloud services, and do provide a worthy competitor to Google and other providers! Then, we'd have some exciting innovation! In the meantime, pah... sorry guys. I know you work VERY hard. But PLEASE tell Ballmer to step aside so you can do something that isn't designed by the Corporate Committee!

      We had the same experience with Sharepoint. We embraced it wholly, too, amidst the shitstorm of try to get to work right. When we finally got fed up with weekly expensive calls back to Redmond, we got sucker punched when we discovered the back end database structure is an opaque nightmare and Sharepoint was essentially holding our data hostage. We won't touch sharepoint again, and I have heard similar experiences from other companies in my area.

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  5. Not wasting my time again by DeathSquid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After suffering through the hell that is the web interface to Outlook, why would I waste my time with another steaming pile of Microsoft web UI? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

    1. Re:Not wasting my time again by dingfelder · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

      I think you meant: fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." -- george bush

  6. Ribbon? by RazorSharp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does it have the horrible ribbon thing that the newer versions of Office have? If so, I think it will have a hard time catching on (I tried that "See How it Works" link on their site but they wanted me to install Silverlight). No one I know took OOo or Symphony seriously until MS came out with the ribbon interface. It was at that point they felt the need to see what type of competition was out there.

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    "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
    1. Re:Ribbon? by liquidweaver · · Score: 3, Informative

      Does it have the horrible ribbon thing that the newer versions of Office have? If so, I think it will have a hard time catching on (I tried that "See How it Works" link on their site but they wanted me to install Silverlight). No one I know took OOo or Symphony seriously until MS came out with the ribbon interface. It was at that point they felt the need to see what type of competition was out there.

      The web app versions of Word and Excel look very similar to their desktop counterparts, including the damn ribbon. The rich version of Outlook does not for whatever reason.

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    2. Re:Ribbon? by RazorSharp · · Score: 2

      I don't understand why they don't just make the ribbon an option. I can never find anything on it. Fortunately, I rarely have to. I just use Excel when I need to view a spreadsheet that won't play nice with Symphony. I feel sorry for the guy who has to author them.

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      "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
    3. Re:Ribbon? by RazorSharp · · Score: 3

      Do you always whimper like a fag when things change?

      Do you always post AC when using homophobic pejoratives?

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      "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
    4. Re:Ribbon? by rueger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm baffled by the intense dislike of the Ribbon. I expected to hate it, but very quickly found it a great thing - probably one of the nicer changes that Office has seen in a long time.

      What, exactly, is so annoying about it? Barry

      --
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    5. Re:Ribbon? by RazorSharp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or I could just avoid Office like the plague whenever possible, as I've always done. Unfortunately, my boss doesn't let me get away with avoiding it completely, but he doesn't realize I use Symphony 90% of the time (damn you Excel spreadsheets!).

      The last thing I want to do is spend my time learning where the icons are on a MS interface. I could be doing important things, like trolling Slashdot.

      --
      "From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
    6. Re:Ribbon? by hawguy · · Score: 2

      Seriously dude, just get used to it. The ribbon has been out for 4 years now, for crying out loud. It is actually quite convenient if you take the time to familiarize yourself with it. Or you could just whine and never learn anything, I guess.

      Yeah dammit! If I like the ribbon and find it easy to use, then you must too! Even if you don't like it, get used to it! There's no way that the previous UI was better! One size fits all and if you can't handle the ribbon, you're stupid.

      (in reality, I don't like the ribbon and find it to be harder to use than the previous menus, I can never remember where things are - my artistically inclined wife, however, loves it - I guess she's more spatially/icon oriented and I'm more textually oriented. Fortunately, I can use Libreoffice for most of my Office document needs)

    7. Re:Ribbon? by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      Seriously dude, AIDS has been around for 30 years now. Just get familiar with it.

    8. Re:Ribbon? by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 2

      I'm baffled by the intense dislike of the Ribbon.

      Let me explain.

      The "drop down menu" system was a result of many years of academic research by places like Xerox Palo Alto center (where they also came up with ideas such as GUI, mouse, object-oriented programming etc) and places like IBM research labs. The end result was a compromise that catered equally to people who are capable of remembering complex, multi-level structures and those who were impaired in this capacity but instead could remember things by location/position.

      That is why the system reigned supreme for many decades in both text terminal environments and GUI ones.

      The ribbon breaks this premise by favouring people with better visual memory over those who are more adept to remembering things by categories, function and similar classifications. That is why "artsy" people love the ribbon and many deeply technical people can never get used to it and hate with a passion.

      The old system was a compromise meant to address needs of most people by offering multiple ways of getting to the various functions, by "class/function", by visual memory (which was enhanced further by use of icons in front of menu items) and by direct command (shortcuts). The ribbon penalizes the first type in favour of visuals and thus alienates a whole class of people but it pleases an another group far more then the old system.

      Hence the endless love/hate warfare, which in my opinion will never end since it is neigh impossible for many people to change the way their minds work and so they will be always relegated to a "second class citizen" status by systems that cater to those whose memory is positional/visual.

    9. Re:Ribbon? by Kyrall · · Score: 2

      So you've been using a major UI for years and can't "remotely get used to the damn thing"? Does this speak more about the ribbon or you?
      Seriously, it's not that bad. It even pretty much makes sense when you try to get used to it.
      As with the differences between a GUI and Command line, it's probably not the best way for performing repeated, complex tasks, but for the majority of users it is user-friendly and intuitive.

  7. What's the point? by DogDude · · Score: 2

    Can somebody please explain what the point of this is? I don't get it. A file server isn't complicated or expensive. I do own a small business, and I read all of the marketing stuff, but I can't find a single reason why I'd switch from plain ol' Office + fileserver + hosted Exchange. If anything, I'd have to spend MORE money on bandwidth.

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    1. Re:What's the point? by WindBourne · · Score: 2

      In a distributed environment (such as multiple ppl working from home), this makes good sense. In addition, you do not have to deal with admining much, etc. There is a decent use for this. However, Office 365 will NOT be a good choice. It will no doubt be designed to lock you into MS and only MS (though it may support apple with an inferior approach just to keep the FTC goons off their back).

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    2. Re:What's the point? by BeanThere · · Score: 2

      A file server isn't complicated or expensive - IF you happen to have someone with half a clue in your organization. Believe me, not everyone has that luxury - the world is pretty "stupid" out there. I think a lot of small (non-tech, e.g. a small florist or whatever) businesses would find this simplifies things for them.

  8. High-performance video editing by Russ1642 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I stopped reading TFA at "For instance, the Office Web Apps version of PowerPoint doesn’t have the high-performance video editing tools found in the desktop version..." They actually used High-Performance and PowerPoint in the same sentence. You've got to be kidding me.

  9. Re:They still haven't figured it out by liquidweaver · · Score: 2

    There are some fundamental problems with this - the biggest of which is you can't use it unless you already have Office on your desktop. How did they not learn from this mistake the first time around?

    Just FYI, you don't need any local software installed, in fact you don't even need windows. I have it open in a browser on my Debian laptop right now, Slashdot in another tab.

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  10. Re:They still haven't figured it out by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    Just FYI, you don't need any local software installed, in fact you don't even need windows. I have it open in a browser on my Debian laptop right now, Slashdot in another tab.

    Do you have access to all functionality? If you go to Microsoft Office 365's system requirements page, it specifically lists certain versions of MS Office (and the Windows OS) as being requirements for this. At the very top of that page it states:

    "To get the full Office 365 experience, we recommend that customers meet our system prerequisites. Minimum requirements for Office 365 include Office 2007+, IE 7+, Windows XP SP3+ (see full requirement list below)."

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  11. Re:Will it work with none MS or Apple systems? by liquidweaver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I seriously doubt it. ANd if it does, my bet is that it will fail within 2 years.

    I work in an organization where my department is all Linux, and the rest of the company is Windows XP or 7. Moving to Office 365 for me has been a benefit, actually, because with the exception of Lync I can access all the web versions of the apps using Iceweasel/Firefox in my linux machine. As far as Apple goes, I hear there is a web version of Lync you can use because Apple can run Silverlight. So, if like me you are all FOSS, the only thing you are missing out on is Lync.

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  12. Great price for Hosted Exchange by DalDei · · Score: 2

    I agree with all the Sharepoint stuff. And cloud hosted documents is not a one-size-fits-all ... although I can see the benifit. But ignore all that. Just look at Exchange Hosting. A company I'm with is paying about $14/month per user for Exchange hosting with ActiveSync (for iphone syncing) and a "vast" limit of 150MB/user mailbox. And thats with a year's commitment. For 7 users this is quite cheep compared to managing our own exchange server (complete with MS Server licensing and a M$PhD to administer it). I tried the Office 365 beta and was up and running in minutes on my desktop , iPhone, and iPad with full exchange/outlook both native (all devices) and web. Pricing - $6/user with 25GB / mailbox. Thats just seriously kick-a$$ pricing if your org wants exchange. (mine does, I tried moving us to pure IMAP but the boss likes his Outlook, contacts, calendars etc). Its a flipping steal. As soon as were done with our (ignorantly signed 1 year contract last month) I'm moving us over to 365 ... unless the smoke has been let out in the meantime. You can take your Sharepoint and web office apps .,... I just want full exchange/outlook for dirt cheep pricing. -David

  13. Sharepoint is a EDM and Workflow Engine by kervin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you're comparing Sharepoint with Google Docs, I'm not sure you fully understand what Sharepoint brings to the table.

    I'm actually wrapping up a Sharepoint 2010 installation this month. It's on time and budget. The company now has their entire Workflow process, including custom C# workflow/document rules that were developed specifically for their needs.

    Google Docs and Sharepoints are not even similar products. If you can go with either for your needs, then by all means go with Google Docs. Because that means you're really not using Sharepoint properly.

  14. Re:Will it work with none MS or Apple systems? by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For how long? MS has a long history of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. And they are now in Embrace.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.