He says the “rich application environment” of a locally hosted office suite makes interactions such as making a call or setting up a web conference much easier and quicker on a PC.
Google Apps’ advantage is that it is cheaper – US$50 (A$49) a user a year – and licences are simpler because there is only one copy. Microsoft sells the benefits of an on-premises installation because, despite its proclaimed desire to move to the cloud, it will not sell customers the productivity suite capabilities of Office 365 unless they own on-premises versions of Office.
Office Pro Plus
Office 365 has the familiar stable of programs in the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) – SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Communicator Online (now Lync Online) – and Office. Office Pro Plus is a cloud version of Office with Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
With Office Pro Plus, “for the first time customers will be able to buy Office in the cloud”, says Kelly Innis, product marketing manager for Microsoft Online Services.
Innis confirms that customers won’t be able to buy Office Pro Plus in the cloud as a standalone service, unlike Google Apps.
Three of the Office online services – Lync, SharePoint and Exchange – are bought separately.
A customer can only buy Office Pro Plus if it is bundled with at least one of the other three services. Prices also change to charge by user rather than by device. One user will pay a monthly fee but has access from multiple devices, including those with Windows 7 Mobile.
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