Microsoft has announced the much-anticipated Office 365 service that brings Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online to consumers in a cloud environment. Available for a monthly subscription fee ranging from $2 to $27 per user per month, all applications will remain up to date and usable from all anywhere… as long as you aren’t running iOS or Android.
Boasting a variety of collaborative features as well as the ability to hold virtual meetings and communicate via instant messaging, the key benefit is the availability of the Microsoft Office suite of software without the large initial investment that is currently required.
Having tested Microsoft 365 on iOS and Android extensively, Galen Gruman from InfoWorld confirmed what Microsoft tried hard not to say: “Office 365 is basically useless on mobile.”
Initial advertising done by Microsoft certainly led us to believe that this service would be available and intended for use by mobile devices, although they never specifically mention being compatible with any in particular.
This isn’t the only shortcoming either, while Microsoft proclaims compatibility with FireFox, Safari and Chrome browsers, their use of ActiveX and Silverlight controls mean much of the functionality of their apps will be unavailable outside of Internet Explorer.
These deficiencies seem unwise given the numerous other alternatives available for cloud storage, collaboration and document editing and management. It may be that Microsoft is hoping to use this as an incentive to resuscitate Windows 7 based smartphones for use by interested businesspeople, but I think it is more likely that they will alienate and annoy them.
Microsoft Office 365 is available as a free 30 day trial for businesses.
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