Microsoft Launches Office 365 Cloud Suite

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?"

Comments

Dealbreaker

[Anonymous Coward]

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

We use it here

[liquidweaver]

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.

Re:We use it here

[liquidweaver]

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.

Re:We use it here

[lymond01]

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.

Re:We use it here

[djlowe]

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

Who do you want reading your docs?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Neither, thanks.

Sharepoint 2010 - Core of the Business Web Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Ribbon?

[RazorSharp]

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.

Re:Ribbon?

[liquidweaver]

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.

Re:Ribbon?

[RazorSharp]

Do you always whimper like a fag when things change?

Do you always post AC when using homophobic pejoratives?

Re:Ribbon?

[rueger]

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

High-performance video editing

[Russ1642]

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.

Re:Not wasting my time again

[dingfelder]

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

Re:Will it work with none MS or Apple systems?

[liquidweaver]

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.

Sharepoint is a EDM and Workflow Engine

[kervin]

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.

Re:Will it work with none MS or Apple systems?

[WindBourne]

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