Microsoft is definitely making a push to move its clients to the cloud. Even the company’s most recent release of Office 2016, its desktop business productivity suite, includes multiple cloud integration options including real-time collaboration on documents. Companies are quickly realizing the benefits of having cloud-based applications as they eliminate the need for their IT departments to purchase and deploy newer versions of software every year, in addition to the inherent backup capabilities and ease of accessibility the cloud provides.
In order to meet the demand for cloud applications, Microsoft released Office 365 in June 2011 as the company’s first subscription-based, business application suite hosted in the cloud. While Microsoft wasn’t the first company to offer cloud-based office suite (Google Docs and Sheets was released back in 2006), their advantage is the familiarity the world has with Microsoft Office. The original Microsoft Office was released in November of 1990 and as of 2012, had over one billion users globally. As so many companies are already familiar with the platform, most are moving to Microsoft Office 365 to leverage the power of the cloud while maintaining user interfaces and application options their employees are already used to using.
Here are a few reasons why businesses are opting to move to Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Outlook
As a large percentage of organizations have relied on Microsoft Outlook for their business emails, calendaring, meeting scheduling, and other purposes – migrating away from the application has presented many challenges. CIO ran an article recently titled “Why companies are switching from Google Apps to Office 365.” The article mentions a company that switched to Google Apps but the CEO was insistent on using Microsoft Outlook for email. Unfortunately, Gmail and Microsoft Outlook don’t seamlessly work together. While emails will sync without any issues, calendar management of Google Calendar through Outlook is very difficult to do. As a result, IT staff members are recommending migrating to Office 365 in order to meet the needs of not only their C-Level executives but all of the employees who are already familiar with Outlook.
Robust Integration Options
Outlook which runs on Exchange Online as part of Office 365 features multiple integration options for other applications in the Microsoft Office suite. Users can attach recently worked on documents from within Outlook itself, instead of having to search for the folder where the files are saved and then attach to send. OneDrive can also be integrated with Outlook as can Skype for Business. Essentially, users can conduct a variety of functions from one screen.
Enhanced Enterprise Support
Microsoft offers all of its clients (both on cloud platforms and standalone traditional deployments) 24/7 technical support. While other providers do offer 24/7 online and phone support, enterprise level Microsoft Office 365 subscribers are given dedicated account managers who are able to assist at a moment’s notice.
Even though there are a couple of different options available for companies looking to move their office suite to the cloud, Microsoft Office 365 is quickly gaining momentum as the leading cloud office suite provider.
