The Benefits of an Office 365 Workspace | Virtualization Technology | Cloud Computing

The Benefits of an Office 365 Workspace
used with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Website

Truth be told, no one wants to work 365 days a year. However, we do need our technology to be available around the clock because you never know when that hot sales prospect will want a product fact sheet or when you’ll need to coordinate a last-minute cross-country meeting. In most workplace instances, having integrated, always available communication and collaboration solutions streamlines the way we work and can be just the ticket to greater productivity and cost savings.

For this reason, Microsoft has developed Office 365, which brings together cloud versions of our most trusted communications and collaboration products with familiar Microsoft Office productivity solutions. Using the cloud to deliver these services enables us to provide a host of benefits aimed at keeping businesses of all sizes agile and competitive. Here are just a few key benefits we’re most excited about:

* Enterprise-class security and reliability. One of the best aspects of the cloud is that it makes enterprise-class technologies, as well as their associated benefits, available at a price that smaller companies can afford. For instance, numerous layers of security help protect Office 365’s data centers; stringent privacy policies help keep your data safe.

* Additionally, the data centers provide first-rate disaster recovery capabilities, are fully redundant and are geographically dispersed to help ensure your data is available. This means no more worrying about what would happen to your network should natural disasters or other unforeseen complications occur – with Office 365, you get a financially backed guaranteed 99.9 percent uptime.

* IT control and efficiency. On any given day, basic IT management tasks like retaining security updates and upgrading back-end systems occupy a great deal of your IT workers’ time, preventing them from focusing their energy on business priorities. Office 365 will handle tasks like these, while still giving your IT staff control over user management and service configuration.

* User familiarity and productivity. Creating an Office 365 workspace doesn’t necessarily result in a large learning curve for employees. If your business already uses programs like Microsoft Office, Outlook, SharePoint and others, your employees will merely be transitioning to a similar, but cloud-based experience. Moreover, since these programs are hosted on the cloud, employees can access information while on the go, from any laptop, PC or Smartphone, depending on WiFi capability or phone network availability.

Office 365 also brings some exciting improvements to the programs your employees rely on each day. For instance, MailTips-a feature of Exchange Online-acts as a friendly assistant, alerting you of when you are about to send mail to individuals out of the office, if you’re accidentally replying to a large distribution list or sending confidential information outside the company. Additionally, Lync Online now works with SharePoint Online and Office, so that workers can quickly and easily communicate and collaborate with one another in ways that include audio and video chats and desktop sharing.
Getting the job done right in today’s mobile, global marketplace requires new, innovative ways to stay connected. Office 365 brings with it the power of cloud productivity to help forward-looking businesses remain connected and competitive. To learn more about how an Office 365 workspace could benefit your business, please visit http://office365.microsoft.com/en-US/online-services.aspx.