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Many people have heard about the Office 365 product from Microsoft, but few know that you can get Office 365 for home for free. In addition to the latest version of Office (2016 at the time of writing), it also offers 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage, 60 monthly Skype mobile/landline calls, and use of up to 5 computers. Is it a tempting offer? In this article I will tell you how to get it for free.

To begin with, it is worth informing that the product will be completely legal and linked to your account (you must first create one if you do not have one). Microsoft has a promotion where you can get Office 365 for home for free for a month, but we won’t stop at a month.

Get a trial version of Office 365 for a month

To get started, go to the Office 365 trial page and click “Try free for a month.”

You will be redirected to a page where you can purchase a trial version. Do not be afraid of the word “acquisition”, because it is figurative. Although in any case you need to indicate a valid card (Visa or Master Card) to sign up for a trial subscription.

30 rubles will be debited from your card, which will be returned within a few days.

After completing these simple steps, you will find yourself on the Office Personal Account page. Office 365 for home will be present and there will also be an inscription about automatic renewal. If you do not want money to be debited from your card, select " Account Management».

On the payment and billing page, next to automatic subscription renewal, click " Change" and select " Turn off automatic renewal».

Ready! Subscription auto-renewal is disabled; money will not be debited from the card after the expiration date. You can also remove the card itself from your account, but this is at your discretion. Now let’s move on to the most interesting part - how to increase the validity period of Office 365 for Home for free and for a long time.

The fact is that Microsoft has a loyalty program for Office 365 products. As part of it, every Office 365 user who contacts technical support regarding Office issues can receive 1 or 2 months completely free.

How to contact support

You can contact support in 2 ways:

Through the “Get Help” application
Or via the support site

In the description of the request, you can describe any question regarding Office, for example:

After selecting the topic of your request, you can choose the type of communication - Phone or Chat, choose what is more convenient for you.

Office 365 Home free for 1 month

The essence of the loyalty program is to increase confidence in the product and the client’s willingness to repurchase.

A free month will be provided if the support employee was able to solve your problem and if you have auto-renewal enabled, you will be offered 1 month. After which a letter with instructions was sent to the post office to receive a month.

Office 365 Home free for 2 months

2 months are provided according to an absolutely similar scheme, but with one difference - auto-renewal must be turned off. Once your question or problem is resolved, the employee will ask you to enable auto-renewal; after agreeing, you will receive another 2 months, which will be sent to your email.

Do not hesitate, because this offer is temporary and may end at any time. I’ll make a reservation that I paid for a subscription to Office 365 for a year (the product is really very convenient), but I couldn’t resist extending the subscription for a couple of months :)

Download Office 365 for free. The latest, current version of Microsoft Office for your computer is available for download. Downloading is available both from the official website and via torrent.

You can now take advantage of all the features of the latest versions of the main office application from Microsoft absolutely free of charge, simply by subscribing. The latter allows you to install the product on 5 computers. Office 365 distributed for use both on a home personal computer and in universities.

All you need is to get a unique login and password. After this, you will have access to all the benefits of the program. By the way, another important addition is that here you will have a whole terabyte of space on a cloud drive where you can store your documents without fear for their safety.

In addition, the utility allows you to use the same file on different devices, and also provides a multi-user mode, which will come in handy when editing a document together. And finally, it is worth noting that this version works much faster than its predecessors and has a nice design in the style of Windows 8, which cannot but please users.

Office 365 login to mail

Review these instructions to log into Office 365 and activate the program for 1 year.

The program is available for download for Windows 7 and Windows 10 (x32 and x64 bit).

You can now take advantage of all the features of the latest versions of the main office application from Microsoft absolutely free of charge, simply by subscribing.

Png" data-category="Office programs" data-promo="/templates/Pisces-kamazox/images/dw..html" target="_blank">Download Office 365

Standard installer		For free!
check	Official distribution Download Office 365	check
close	Silent installation without dialog boxes	check
close	Recommendations for installing the necessary programs	check
close	Batch installation of multiple programs	check

Working with Office 365

In this chapter, we will describe the procedure for registering and creating an account for our organization in Office 365.

It consists of 3 stages:

1st. Submitting an application.
2nd. Receive instructions for activating the product by e-mail.
And 3rd. Actual activation.

Let's get started. Initially, we need to go to the website of the Russian partner of Microsoft®: - SKB Kontur company. For this:

Let's launch an Internet browser.
In the address bar we will type the address kontur365.ru. At the specified address we will be taken to the page Application for connection to the Contour 365 portal.
On this page you can get acquainted with a brief description and capabilities of the service.
To create a request, click the Try button. A screen form for filling out an application will open.

The form filling dialog has 2 tabs:

Order a demo.
And Buy the full version.

We'll stop for now free trial of Office 365. The demo version of the program is a full-fledged working version, only with a limited period of use. Office 365 can be used for a 30-day trial period. Once the decision is made to commercially use the product, you will need to purchase licenses for the required number of users. In this case, all accounts from the trial version will be activated, and the trial version will be converted into a paid version.

On the “Order a demo” tab, fill in all the fields:

first and last name of the first user of the service,
Name of the organization,
her tax identification number and checkpoint,
region,
email address to which a description of the activation procedure will be sent,
the desired domain name in the domain "onMicrosoft®.com". We recommend adding your organization's abbreviation here. When you create your first account in this domain, a public website for your organization will be created. In the future, you can continue to use the specified name or change it to your existing domain. You can add multiple domains to your Office 365 program that belong to your organization. One of the video lessons will be devoted to working with domains.
Once all fields are completed, click the Submit Application button. A procedure will go through to check that the fields are filled out correctly and that the domain name you entered is empty. If successful, the application will be sent.

Within 12 hours after registration, an email with instructions for logging into Office 365 will be sent to the email address you specified in the application.

After receiving a letter from the support service, we will follow all the steps specified in the activation instructions.

Go to the portal start page using the link provided in paragraph 1 of the instructions.

In the Login section, enter in the Identifier.. and Password fields, respectively, the user name and temporary password specified in the 2nd paragraph of the instructions. Let us immediately inform you that the first user created in the domain automatically becomes the administrator of all available Office 365 web services for your organization.

Click the Login button. The service's security system requires that the user must change the password before logging into the system for the first time. Therefore, the office page Change password will open.

On this page, in the appropriate fields, enter:

Old Password,
New Password. The password complexity level is displayed by an indicator below the input field. If it is green, the password meets the complexity criteria.
In the confirmation field, re-enter your new password.
Click the Submit button. You will be returned to the portal home page.
Make sure your ID is selected in the Login section and enter your password again.
Click the Login button. In a few seconds you will be taken to the main page of the office. Registration and creation of the first account were successful.

The first account is the administrator account. As an administrator, Office 365 licenses are disabled by default. You can either assign licenses to an administrator or create a user and specify the required licenses for that user. Let's focus on the option of assigning licenses for the administrator.

At the top of the office home page is the main menu. So far it contains only 2 commands:

Homepage
and Administrator.

Run the Administrator command. The page of the same name will open.

In the left pane, in the Manage section, select Users. The section of the same name will be displayed, which contains a table with a list of users registered in the system. So far it contains only one entry - this is the administrator who logged into the Office for the first time.

Select the assigned licenses by checking and clearing the appropriate checkboxes. Selecting the Microsoft® Office 365 check box allows you to assign all three available licenses to the user:

Lync® Online,
SharePoint® Online,
Exchange Online.
After checking the boxes, click the Save button. Licenses assigned.
Click the Save button again. The changes will take effect and you will be returned to the Users section.

Note. 2 new commands have appeared in the main office menu:

Outlook®
and Group website.
To configure the Office and its main page taking into account the assigned licenses, execute the Home page main menu command.

After a short setup, the main (or home) page will change. It will contain sections in accordance with the licenses assigned to the user. We will get acquainted with each of these sections in the following lessons.

(0)

1.	Introduction	3:23	1	5504
2.	How to get started with Office 365	6:04	0	6161
3.	Initial setup	4:21	1	4482
4.	Getting to know the home page	3:31	0	2009
5.	Creating users and assigning roles	6:07	1	3879
6.	Import contacts from email	3:33	0	4811
7.	Adding other email accounts	2:15	1	6426
8.	Connect on-premises Outlook® to Office 365	3:33	2	2703
9.	Editing a site - SharePoint Online service	7:46	0	2869
10.	Site settings and administration	2:15	0	2865
11.	Creating and saving a site template	2:57	0	3934
12.	Shared document storage	1:24	0	2879
13.	Creating a Document Library	4:49	0	3090
14.	Documents folder in the library	3:07	2	5078
15.	Collaborative editing and conflict resolution before...	4:16	0	4305

Any program is not only files and functionality, it is also a service. And the more modern the program, the more complex its basis and the wider the scope of services provided. Today, this concept has stepped to a new level, providing the user not with a service or program as such, but with some kind of comprehensive solution, including both in different proportions. A striking example of such a future is a proposal called Microsoft Office 365 (version available in Russian).

The new commercial concept of the development company is a list of subscription services available via the Internet, access to which allows you to use familiar programs, regardless of where exactly the service consumer is currently located and what device he is using. As a result of subscribing to Office 365, the user receives constant access to a unique business package, including the necessary office suite, as well as software for managing it and email communication.

You can download office 365 for free in Russian (or rather, subscribe to these services), and receive an activation key for 30 days for a test to evaluate how much you like this software.

Depending on the subscription option, the software package includes a different set of programs, but in general the following are available to the user:

the Sharepoint system (Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies), which provides the user with a simple and effective page builder and allows you to create a business card website;
a place to store absolutely any information within Onedrive (cloud file storage from Microsoft);
the ability to send email using a business-class service located on the Exchange server base (originally conceived as a collaboration project, including a wide range of tools for exchanging voice and text messages);
Lync communicator, which provides text messaging and conferences in both audio and video formats, including desktop sharing;
access to the most up-to-date version of the office suite available on the market, and is currently represented by Office 2016.

The concept was first launched for beta testing at the end of 2010, and as an officially released product it became available to consumers in the summer of 2011.

Currently, home users can use this package as a combination of desktop programs and network services. A fairly modest payment allows you to download to your PC and, after installation, use the practically irreplaceable Microsoft Access (creation and management of relational databases), Microsoft Word (a well-known text editor) and Microsoft Excel (a spreadsheet processor for formulas, various tables and graphs), as well as useful for business:

OneNote(a program for taking notes, extremely useful as a personal organizer, has a tree structure; recently you can download OneNote for free from the Microsoft website);
Outlook(a world-famous email client for managing user email accounts, has rich functionality, extensive capabilities for managing address book contacts, customizable spam filters, mechanisms for creating backup copies of user data);
PowerPoint(a well-known program for creating presentations);
Publisher(a custom publishing system that helps create marketing materials for the needs and objectives of the company).

In addition to this, access to SkyDrive cloud file storage is provided, where by default the consumer receives as much as 20 GB for his files. Word documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentation files and OneNote notes can now be edited directly through the browser.

A nice finishing touch to the package is sixty paid minutes of Skype calls to phones in four dozen countries around the world, but the selection of these countries is not entirely clear - for example, Ukraine is not included in this list for some reason. Note that Skype was recently acquired by Microsoft, which is engaged in its further maintenance and development.

Any previous version in Russian Microsoft Office can be downloaded for free for Windows 10, 8, 7 and XP on your PC, however, it would not be entirely appropriate to think that downloading Office 365 is due to the fact that this package is a set of web services that is distributed through a subscription.

Users of another popular operating system from Apple – Mac OS X. They also have access to the main office suite programs at the Office 2013 level, and they also have space for files on the SkyDrive cloud.

In both cases, all programs are licensed and contain only those functions that the developers have endowed them with, but there is a catch in this case: all licenses are tied to the same Microsoft account, so making someone a beautiful gift (post on the Internet) or you won’t be able to sell your purchase just like that.

However, there is also a plus in this approach: having once purchased licenses, the user can regulate them within his account - add useful features or remove unnecessary functionality using the office.com portal.

The most global advantage of the innovation is the ability to collaborate: files located on SkyDrive can be viewed and edited by office applications, which has made Office 365 a truly innovative and progressive solution in the application software market.

A distinctive feature of the proposal was its interface: after all the programs included in the installation package are installed and launched, it becomes clear that this is a slightly adapted and modified Metro interface, which became famous thanks to Windows 8.

The new design is distinguished by a pleasant lightness, which immediately has a beneficial effect on the speed of applications and ease of use, which is characteristic of almost all products from Microsoft.

In general, we can confidently say that the development and implementation of Office 365 will not go unnoticed by the company, because the trend towards the development of client-server technologies continues to gain momentum. Let's add to all this well-known office programs and their high speed and proper reliability. Office 365 will definitely confirm its high position in the office software market, and for many consumers, the web-based nature of popular software will become a decisive factor in their choice.

On April 20, 2011 in Moscow, at a press conference held in a restaurant with the symbolic name “Clouds,” it was announced that the new solution, Microsoft Office 365, would become available to Russian customers before the end of the 2011 calendar year.

The first thing I want to say is that Office 365 is not a new version of the well-known Microsoft Office application suite. This is an online (“cloud”) service, paid by users on a subscription fee model, and combines the functionality of Microsoft Office client applications, as well as server products such as Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Lync Server 2010.

For the American market, the subscription fee will range from $6 to $27 per user per month, depending on the selected service plan, which is obviously very affordable. Service plans differ in the number of features available to the user.

Functionality

Office 365 is currently in public beta testing, which, unfortunately, is not yet available in Russia. Therefore, we will judge the functionality based on available English-language marketing materials, as well as based on knowledge of on-premise (intended for deployment on our own infrastructure) versions of the relevant products.

So, what does an employee of a company that subscribes to the Office 365 service get?

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010

Depending on the selected tariff plan, the cost of a subscription may include a license (the right to use) the well-known Microsoft Office suite in an edition that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace and Lync. The installation distribution, about 640MB in size, is downloaded from the service’s self-service portal.

For a moderate subscription fee, an enterprise gets the opportunity to legally use Microsoft Office, the latest version and the maximum edition. And do this flexibly: if it is necessary to expand the staff, the number of subscriptions increases, while staff reductions decrease accordingly. It should be noted that Microsoft's current standard Volume Licensing policy does not provide similar flexibility in handling purchased licenses. For example, an enterprise does not have the opportunity to “transfer” (sell) an acquired very expensive license to another legal entity. And in the conditions of Russian realities, such a need could arise quite often, for example, in connection with the transfer of any business functions between divisions of the holding, which are separate legal entities, and the corresponding movement of staffing units.

In relation to the Office 365 cloud service, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 is a set of client applications. The code for these applications runs on the local PC, and therefore, in relation to the Office 365 service, they can be called “thick” clients, or desktop clients.

Enough has been said and written about the functionality of the applications included in the package, which is familiar to most users; I see no point in repeating it; further we will dwell only on the functionality that is related to the operation of applications as clients of the Office 365 service.

Microsoft Word 2010 desktop client with a file open in an Office 365 SharePoint Online library (see below)

Microsoft Exchange Server (Exchange Online)

Thanks to the presence of the Exchange Online product as part of the Office 365 service, users get the opportunity to work with enterprise-class email, with “built-in” protection against spam and viruses. Exchange Online is a cloud version of the long-standing Microsoft Exchange Server product on the market, the functionality of which is by no means limited to email: users get the opportunity to centrally store their contact information (the company address book will be generated automatically), and can manage their schedule using calendars and tasks .

The desktop client for Exchange Online is Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft Outlook 2010 desktop client. Works with a corporate email account located in the Office 365 service infrastructure.
Green presence indicators and icons with photographs of letter senders are visible

Desktop client Microsoft Outlook 2010. The personal calendar of events and the calendar of work group events are open at the same time,
stored on an Office 365 SharePoint Online site

Exchange Online also has an online (thin) client - Outlook Web App, accessible from the browser and, accordingly, does not require installation on a PC. The user interface of Outlook Web App is as close as possible to the desktop version of Outlook; almost all functionality is available, including right-clicks.

Outlook Web App in the browser. On the right side -
Lync web conference invitation letter

Microsoft SharePoint Server (SharePoint Online)

SharePoint Online is a cloud version of the Microsoft SharePoint Server server product, designed to organize collaboration between enterprise employees, centralized intelligent storage of documents, support for their simultaneous editing, project management and many other functions.

Let us dwell in more detail on the functionality of this component of the Office 365 service, as, in our opinion, the least familiar service to potential users from the small and personal business sectors.

SharePoint sites use so-called libraries to store documents. A document can be placed in a library in several ways: from a special menu in the Word 2010 desktop client, loaded from the hard drive by clicking on the “Add document” link of the site, or by rewriting the file in Windows Explorer, since any SharePoint library can be opened in Windows Explorer as a network folder.

Office 365 SharePoint document library open in browser

What is the advantage of storing documents in SharePoint libraries over the widespread model of storing files in network folders? Firstly, it eliminates conflicting situations from the point of view of file contents, when one document is edited by two users independently of each other. If a document is “checked out” by a user from a SharePoint library for editing, other users will not be able to change it at that time. It is always clear who exactly retrieved the document.

Secondly, it supports versioning. A SharePoint library can be configured to store all versions of documents from the moment they were created. Moreover, any intermediate version can be opened, find out who is the author of the changes and when they were made. You can even compare two versions of a document.

Thirdly, it supports the ability to simultaneously edit documents. In particular, for example, it is possible for two or more users to edit the same Word document simultaneously. A paragraph that one user is working on is assigned to him and other users cannot make changes to it. (Blocking in Excel is done at the cell level.) During this editing, users can communicate with each other via instant messaging, voice, or video through the Lync Online component of Office 365 (see below).

Microsoft Word 2010 desktop client. A list of users is visible,
simultaneously editing one document stored
in the Office 365 SharePoint Online site library

Fourthly, it is possible to organize a full-text search based on the contents of documents. By entering a part of a word into the search window of a SharePoint Online site, the search results will contain all documents in the content of which this combination of letters is found. This allows you to effectively manage the information accumulated in the company, located in Microsoft Office documents. Each new document will complement the enterprise knowledge base.

SharePoint Online also includes a set of Office Web Apps - these are thin clients for working with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files. Thin clients run in a browser; therefore, they do not require installation on a PC, and implement the most popular functions of their desktop counterparts. The supported browsers for Office Web Apps are Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, and Chrome (see detailed technical requirements below).

With Office Web Apps, you can both view and edit Office documents directly in your browser. It should be noted that Office Web Apps handle fairly complex formatting well, and only extreme tricks will be displayed approximate. To open a file in Office Web Apps, simply click on the link to the corresponding file in the library.

A Microsoft Word document opened for viewing in the Word Web App thin client. Quite complex formatting is displayed correctly

With Office 365, you can stop sending files as attachments in emails and instead only send links to documents located in your SharePoint library. This reduces the amount of information sent via email, maintains one current version of the document stored centrally, and eliminates the need to worry about whether the recipient has the latest version of the required Microsoft Office application installed - Office Web Apps will help you open the document in any browser .

Offline editing of files is also possible. The Microsoft SharePoint Workspace application, included in Microsoft Office Professional Plus, transparently manages a local copy of library documents for the user, synchronizing modified documents when connected to the Internet, and, accordingly, to the Office 365 service.

SharePoint Workplace

You can upload a Microsoft Access database to the SharePoint site of the Office 365 service, which allows you to have a single up-to-date copy of a small database accessible through the web interface, sufficient, for example, for maintaining inventory records for a small enterprise.

Microsoft Access database published on SharePoint Online

Office 365 SharePoint Online site libraries can be configured to support alerting mechanisms and business processes.

In particular, using the alert mechanism, subscribed users can receive emails when documents are added or changed in the library of interest to them, which allows them to always stay up to date on changes to documents that are currently being actively collaborated on, or vice versa, rarely changed, but important documents for the company's activities - various provisions and regulations. At the same time, the employee who made changes or published a new document is relieved of the obligation to notify interested parties - SharePoint Online will do this work for him.

The business process mechanism allows you to automate standard processes for passing documents within an enterprise. For example, in the editorial office of a computer publication, after the author has prepared the materials, approval by the editor must take place, and then the material must be queued for publication. In this case, the business process has obvious steps that can be configured in SharePoint Online in Office 365. Once the document is placed in the library, the business process will automatically start and the editor will receive an email notification of new material that needs to be reviewed. After reviewing material in Word or Word Web App, the editor can either approve the document or reject it with a comment. In any case, the author will receive a corresponding notification by email. After the editor approves the material, the employee responsible for further actions will receive a notification, and so on until the end of the business process. Information is always available on the website about what stage a particular business process that has started is at, which allows you to keep the situation under control.

Business process mechanisms in Office 365 can be configured quite flexibly. The system already has a number of pre-configured business processes, and document approval is one of them. If you need to change a business process or build your own, several tools are available: simple setup can be done directly in SharePoint Online, more complex operations can be done in specialized software SharePoint Designer (distributed free of charge) and Microsoft Visio.

Project management features are available in SharePoint Online. For example, you might create a list that lists the tasks performed by project team members. Such a list can be visually displayed in the form of a Gantt chart. When a task is assigned, a notification will be sent to the responsible person via email. Also, a notification will be sent to all subscribers if there is any change in this task: deadlines, content, status; due to which the project team is always aware of the project progress.

A SharePoint Online site can host a project team calendar, including meeting dates, that can be accessed from both the Outlook desktop client (see 3) and the Outlook Web Access thin client. The meetings themselves can be held online through integration with Lync Online.

Microsoft Lync Server (Lync Online)

This component of the Office 365 service is responsible for communications between users. Actually, Lync Online is a cloud implementation of the unified communications server Microsoft Lync Server 2010. Like any product that claims to implement the concept of unified communications, Lync considers the user’s personal computer as the main subscriber communications terminal.

The Lync Client provides a contact-centric user interface that provides immediate visibility into presence indicators for other users, and from which you can start an instant messaging session, voice call, video conference, or web conference using the same simple techniques. During the communication process, you can add participants, change the analog device - for example, switch the call to a Bluetooth headset.

Microsoft Lync Client interface

Lync is quite fully integrated with other components of Office 365, due to which the following scenario can be realized. In Outlook, having identified potential participants for a web conference, you can start planning it in literally one click. Outlook will receive information from Exchange Online about the availability of potential participants and the current version of their work calendars, thanks to which the conference initiator can offer a time not at random, but taking into account the busyness of colleagues, which significantly increases the chances of getting to a convenient time for everyone the first time. All potential participants will be sent an email containing an invitation and a link to the scheduled conference. You can accept an invitation, as well as start or join a conference, directly from Outlook in one click.

Schedule a web conference in Outlook

Conference in Lync. Instant messaging session, video call with active participant display, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation slide show with navigation for participants - all in a single interface

You can invite participants who are not company employees to participate in a web conference. Such participants will be able to join, for example, using the Silverlight version of the client, that is, to participate in a Lync web conference, you do not need to install any additional software on your PC, and, accordingly, you do not need to have local administrator rights. This scenario can be widely used when inviting clients and company partners to participate in webinars.

Lync is also integrated with SharePoint, so that, for example, while co-editing a Word document, you can start instant messaging with other active users directly from the Microsoft Word desktop client interface, and then, if necessary, switch to voice or video communication.

On May 10, 2011, Microsoft announced its acquisition of Skype. At the press conference dedicated to the event, Microsoft's plans to integrate Skype technologies with existing products were announced: Lync, Messenger, Xbox. It is logical to assume that when these plans are implemented, Office 365 users will have direct access to Skype's millions of users.

Public website of the enterprise

Using Office 365, a business can create its own public website, accessible to users on the Internet using the company's own domain name.

You can choose a site theme and design style from the corresponding extensive libraries.

Website themes

Mobile integration

To work with the Office 365 service, you can use almost all common smartphone models that support the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Including smartphones from the iPhone, BlackBerry lines, as well as smartphones with Android and Symbian operating systems (the latter with the Nokia Mail for Exchange client).

Support for the Exchange ActiveSync protocol gives smartphone users the ability to work with email, calendar and contact lists stored in the Office 365 infrastructure. Email synchronization is possible in the so-called push mode, in which incoming letters will be “pushed” from the Exchange Online server to the mobile phone immediately upon receipt, which, on the one hand, allows you to work with mail as quickly as possible, and, on the other hand, leads to a reduction in traffic and an increase in the battery life of the smartphone.

Using smartphone browsers, you can work with SharePoint Online sites. SharePoint can generate special, mobile views of relevant web pages that are convenient to work with on small smartphone screens.

However, especially smooth and complete integration with the Office 365 service is, of course, implemented in Windows Phone. In particular, the Windows Phone interface implements the so-called Office Hub, through which the user has centralized access to the applications Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, as well as documents. Mobile versions of office applications cope well with documents of appropriate formats and allow you to edit them. Integration with SharePoint Online allows you to see links to sites and individual libraries in the Windows Phone interface, open and save documents directly in SharePoint Online.

Windows Phone. Calendar, SharePoint library, PowerPoint presentation and concurrent call

Microsoft announced the release of the Lync Moblie mobile client for Windows Phone and iPhone during the current 2011. In particular, on May 16, 2011, as part of the TechEd conference, an update for Windows Phone codenamed “Mango” was announced, which will feature even deeper integration with Office 365, Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Lync Mobile mobile client.

Windows Phone. Lync Mobile

Functionality summary

Despite the fact that we looked at the components included in Office 365 separately from each other, for the user the entire service looks monolithic. This is achieved by the close integration of server components, desktop and thin clients, as well as a unified approach to the construction of user interfaces.

Office 365 can be classified as UCC (Unified Communications and Collaboration) class platforms/solutions, that is, products that provide unified communications and collaboration among company employees.

Benefits for business users

So, we can say that Office 365 is an offer to take advantage of almost the full range of software included in the Microsoft business productivity group, using the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model.

According to participants in a press conference held on April 20 in Moscow, at which the intention to launch Office 365 in Russia by the end of 2011 was announced, the new service may be of interest to both large companies and companies in the personal, small and medium-sized business segments.

In particular, according to Pavel Kuzmenko, head of the department for promoting Microsoft office information systems in Russia, the value for large companies may lie in the fact that, while receiving all the benefits from the use of modern information technologies, optimize investments and replace capital costs with operating costs (CAPEX OPEX ). However, according to Andrey Patoka, vice president for corporate business development at VimpelCom, large companies that decide to switch to Office 365 will do so over a long period of time, through various hybrid models.

Participants at the press conference expressed the opinion that Office 365 is of particular interest to small companies, and there are several reasons for this.

The first is the ability to gain access to the latest business productivity tools for a small subscription fee. Previously, for small companies, the costs of infrastructure and licensing of relevant software according to the classical model were prohibitive, and the enterprise was deprived of the opportunity to effectively use modern IT. That is, Office 365 is the breakthrough that allows, for example, a startup to reach the same level in technological terms as that achieved by market leaders.

The second is the ability to flexibly manage the number of licenses (service subscriptions). If necessary, the number of subscriptions can be increased or decreased quickly, depending on the need.

The third is the ability to use the enterprise level of functionality of the corresponding products, for example, high availability, which previously required the deployment of a very complex network and server infrastructure, staff training and very high licensing costs.

Fourth, there is no need for special knowledge. Deployment, administration of the service platform, updating software versions are carried out by the service provider, a small company can focus on its core activities, on its competence.

Fifth - the presence of several service plans that differ in subscription fees. A small business can sign up users for a cost-effective service plan that meets their needs for the features included in Office 365.

Sales

In accordance with the model adopted by Microsoft to promote the new service in the world, in Russia access to Office 365 will be provided by Microsoft syndication partners - VimpelCom OJSC and SKB Kontur. Their clients will be able to receive a new solution as part of various combined packages, designed in accordance with the needs of companies of different sizes and profiles.

In particular, Nikolay Pryanishnikov, President of Microsoft Russia, said:

“...the most important thing is that today we are announcing that we will sell and introduce this product to the market with our partners. This is consistent with... the Microsoft model around the world, but I will say that the number of partners is very limited, there will only be a few such partners around the world, and I am pleased to note today that we have chosen, and we have been chosen, the very best companies in the market. From the point of view of an active position, readiness to implement, including a rather complex technical solution, synergy, I would really call these companies leading in Russia. VimpelCom, as a leading telecommunications company; SKB Kontur, as a leading company in Russia, one might say, the pride of Russia, a developer of web services, cloud technologies - wonderful companies. I am sure that both we and our partners will receive very good benefits: we will have the opportunity to promote our products on the market, our partners will additionally receive a very large advantage in the fight for the client, in retention, loyalty, and increased profitability. Today, both in telecom and in the Internet business, it is very important to retain the client. The client may even come to you, but then switching costs nothing: in fact, you can switch from one operator to another. But if you have a package (of services) ... when you offer small and medium-sized businesses an integrated approach, for example, telephony, software, services, and everything is integrated in one package with uniform discounts, of course, the client will not go anywhere . Both the client will benefit and the partner, of course, will benefit. Therefore, today I am very happy about our partnership and want to thank both Andrey and Dmitry for our partnership and wish us good luck in this launch. I am confident that the prospects here are very good.”

“The rest of Microsoft’s partners can remain sales agents,” explained Nikolai Pryanishnikov, answering a question from the audience, “of our integrated solution. They can be partners like VimpelCom and SKB Kontur, and Microsoft partners, but for sales. In this case, they will not have the opportunity to make integrated service packages, but they will be able to sell the product.”

At the press conference, not all information regarding sales of Office 365 in Russia was announced, but only part of it, since work on the project to bring the new product to the market is still ongoing. In particular, prices have not yet been announced.

However, it can be said that VimpelCom plans to package Office 365 offers with offers for fixed-line and mobile communication services, and SKB Kontur with offers for access to their existing online services Kontur-extern (filing tax reports through Internet) and others.

In particular, Andrey Patoka, vice president for corporate business development at VimpelCom, said: “Working with an infocommunication provider is very attractive for the customer, since one provider is responsible not only for the quality of the product, but also for the funds access to the product. Without communication solutions, this whole idea is simply impossible.”

Dmitry Mramorov, General Director of SKB Kontur: “We assume that Office 365 will be included in package offers with our products, first of all, of course, Kontur-Extern - a reporting system. The DiaDoc system ... we believe that in combination with Office 365 there are good prospects ... and it is absolutely wonderful (Office 365) fits the electronic accountant Elba, to provide services for micro-businesses, for small businesses ... ".

SKB Kontur expects to attract a large number of new customers. In particular, the emergence of an Office 365 offering will allow the company to contact not only accounting departments within customer companies, but also the main business structures.

So, while prices in Russia have not yet been announced, let’s try to look at the prices announced as part of the global announcement.

Five service plans have been announced for Office 365: P (aka P1) - personal, for professionals and small businesses, and E1, E2, E3, E4 - corporate, for enterprises. (Some materials also mention plans K1 and K2 for enterprises, but there is no information on them even on the profile website www.office365.com).

Plan P (P1) - $6/user/month, includes:

enterprise-class email, calendars and personal archive;
25 GB for mailbox and mobile mail;
SharePoint team sites;
Office Web Apps;
simple public website;
the ability to publish Access databases;
Lync conferences and the ability to demonstrate a desktop to a remote subscriber (desktop sharing);
multipoint instant messaging and PC-to-PC calling;
community support.

Plans E accordingly include:

It's important to note that desktop Microsoft Office is only available with the E3 plan ($24/user/month), which Microsoft is currently offering for beta testing.

In general, judging by the structure and completeness of the information presented on the official website, it seems that by the time Office 365 beta testing ends, information on tariff plans will still be clarified, even for the American market.

It seems advisable, especially taking into account the planned special packaging of Office 365 offers on the Russian market, to carefully understand the service plans, their options, and functionality. On the other hand, you can always try an economical plan, and, if you lack features, switch to a more advanced one.

How it works

Of course, Office 365 belongs to the category of cloud products, since the end user does not need to have any of his own infrastructure other than a PC and Internet access - Office 365 will come to him “from the cloud”;)

The press conference participants answered several questions about the technical organization of the service. In particular, the server infrastructure on which the Office 365 service runs is located exclusively in Microsoft data centers located around the world; partner data centers are not used. To deploy the Office 365 service, of course, the Microsoft platform is used. There are no plans to create a data center in Russia yet. An enterprise that subscribes to the Office 365 service will not know in which data center the equipment that powers Office 365 is located.

For users, this means that emails and instant messages between adjacent desks in the office can travel through Singapore, for example ;)

And this, in turn, imposes certain requirements on the characteristics of the channel for Internet access. Its speed should be sufficient for both the transmission of bulk traffic (emails, Office documents) and real-time traffic - voice communication and video conferencing. The required channel capacity depends on both the number of users and the typical use of services by each of them, so it is difficult to give any specific recommendations.

Microsoft declares service reliability at 99.9%, and its financial responsibility if this parameter is not achieved. This level of reliability means that 8.76 hours of downtime are allowed per year (43 minutes per month). However, users should remember that access to the service is carried out via the Internet, and, accordingly, they also need to think about ensuring the reliability of the corresponding channels. Of course, end users are unlikely to be able to influence the reliability of the trunk channels connecting the data center with the provider in Russia, but it seems advisable to have a backup option for Internet access, for example, wireless.

In this regard, the proposal to receive services for access to the Office 365 service from one source together with the Internet access service seems interesting. In this case, the supplier will be responsible for the performance of the entire complex. However, the provider's liability, as practice shows, will most likely be within the portion of the subscription fee proportional to the time the service is inoperative in excess of the stated 0.01%.

Therefore, it seems logical to think about the possibility of offline work. In particular, you can choose a service plan with the ability to use the desktop version of Microsoft Office, so that you can continue to work even when there is no Internet access, or you can purchase a license for such Microsoft Office separately. It also seems advisable to have a backup copy of the enterprise’s critical data somewhere on local media, as well as to have a minimal office IT infrastructure, so that in the event of unforeseen situations, the data and at least some ability to process it are not lost.

At the same time, Andrey Patoka, vice president for corporate business development at VimpelCom, comments as follows on the question of what specific liability Beeline Business will bear in the event of a service failure: “... all types (of liability), starting with moral . In business, establishing and maintaining good relationships with the customer is very important. Plus the responsibility that is specified in the contracts. ... SLAs implying financial responsibility. Here we are no different from other large operators; in our relationships with clients, we provide a product configuration that would have all types of motivation for the provider, so that the quality meets the client’s requirements.”

Service management

You can start working with the Office 365 service from the user's start page, from which you can quickly go to Outlook Web Access, download the Lync 2010 Client distribution, quickly go to the SharePoint site and download the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus distribution, or go to service management.

General view of the Office 365 service user's start page

The Office 365 service is managed using the web-based administrator console.

Administrator console. Adding a new user

System requirements

OS:

Windows 7;
Windows Vista with Service Pack 2;
Windows XP with Service Pack 3;
Windows XP Home Edition (with limitations);
Windows XP Media Center Edition (with limitations);
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard.

System software:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (for Windows XP);
Java client 1.4.2 (for Macintosh OS X).

Microsoft Office packages:

Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 Service Pack 2;
Office 2008 for Mac and Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition;
Office 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac;
.NET Framework 2.0 or later;
Microsoft Lync 2010.

Client applications:

Services Connector (special client for accessing the Office 365 service).

Browsers (for accessing Microsoft Online Portal):

Mozilla Firefox 3.x;
Apple Safari 3.x.

Browsers - for running Microsoft Outlook Web App:

Internet Explorer 7 or later;
Firefox 3 or later;
Safari 3 or later running Macintosh OS X 10.5;
Chrome 3 or later;
Outlook Web App also has a lite version that supports a reduced set of functionality and runs on almost any browser.

Development platform

Office 365 is not only a ready-to-use service, but also a development platform.

For example, a developer can implement a so-called web part - a software applet that processes data located on a SharePoint Online site and displays it in a specific area of the web page in a user-friendly form.

You can write code that interacts with Excel documents and Access databases located in Office 365.

It is possible to create your own client for Lync that implements enterprise-specific functionality - for example, embedding communications into the enterprise's main business application. Thanks to which, for example, the numbers of customer requests or shipping invoices will be transmitted in the text of instant messages directly from the corresponding applications.

Currently, the application store for Office 365 - Microsoft Office 365 Marketplace - is already undergoing beta testing, which opens up relevant prospects for developers.

Microsoft Office 365 Marketplace

Conclusion

Office 365 is a logical continuation of the trend that has formed in the industry. The software should come to the user's PC in the form of web applications and cloud infrastructure services - private, hybrid or public. Microsoft has made it possible to deploy all major business productivity applications in the cloud. It was only a matter of time to build our own service, combining all these products into a single whole, and bring this service to the market.

The possibility of licensed use of Microsoft Office, flexible subscription management, the availability of several tariff plans, the ability to use enterprise-level functionality at a very affordable price, the ability to pay using a subscription fee model - all this makes Office 365 an attractive offer, especially for the personal, small and medium-sized business segments .