At the moment no one knows the answers to these questions but I personally think this is quite a good purchase, as long as they can integrate this into the rest of the product range.

So let’s look at why they’ve done it:
Now they have access to 700 million users; obtained a great technology; and are now the market leader in VoIP.

In one foul swoop they have jumped ahead of Apple and Google in consumer internet telephony and video conferencing, plus kept it out of the hands of Facebook. The interesting thing is that Skype is the only truly platform agnostic offering, in that it runs all major desktop systems as well as nearly all mobile phones, which is something Apple and Google can’t claim yet.

Have they paid too much?
It is hard to say if they have paid too much or not, my feeling is yes but if it helps them gain ground in the consumer market, which is something they are striving for (this is why Apple has done so well), then it could be money well spent. The issue Microsoft had was that they were bidding against other companies with pretty deep pockets and they probably needed/wanted Skype more than the others.

Will Microsoft ruin Skype??
I don’t think they will ruin Skype, they’ve paid too much to allow it to wither and die. I think they will wait for a while, take stock of their acquisition and look for ways to integrate it into their other products. XBOX live is ripe for integration as is the Microsoft Office platform, there is also the possibility of aligning it with - or replacing - Live Messenger. (That said I wouldn’t want to be responsible for integrating those platforms together.)

Overall I think this is a good move for Microsoft and quite a brave one, time will tell to see if it is a wise one.

The package also includes support for Office Web Apps and licensing for the Office desktop suite. The beta programme includes small business and enterprise editions. Office 365 replaces the existing BPOS tools, Office Live Small Business and Live Education platforms.

The new Exchange Online is based on Exchange 2010, and like its on-premises sibling gives you access to new scheduling features, along with MailTips for handling out-of-office messages and other common tasks.

Users will get 25GB of storage with each Exchange Online account, and the service will also allow sending attachments as large as 25MB. It’s also set up with antispam and antivirus tools, helping protect your network.

Like SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Online supports social features, and can also be used to manage a secure extranet for working with partners. As it’s the latest version of SharePoint, it’s also a host for Office Web Apps, giving Office 365 both an online editor for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and support for collaboration using the desktop versions of the tools.

Microsoft Office 365 is going to be provided on a per-user license – it will also enable businesses to host websites on the SharePoint online services. You’ll be able to sign up directly on the site, or you’ll be able to purchase a subscription (along with support services) from a Microsoft partner.

Pricing for the UK has yet to be announced, but the US service will have plans ranging from $2 to $27 per user per month, with the more expensive plans including access to the desktop Office suite, and the basic plans just offering web access to email.

Microsoft is also offering a range of plans for what it’s calling ‘kiosk’ workers — that is, workers without a dedicated computer. Kiosk workers will work with Office 365 using their browser, with Outlook Web Apps for email and the Office Web Apps for working with documents.

Small businesses get free access to the cloud service for 30 days, with a $6 per user per month charge after that.

So overall it seems a step in the right direction for Microsoft being able to leasea functional cloud based system to commercial and public sector. Microsoft are only currently offering Windows Live which is limited in ways – but I must say I really do like 365 and looking forward to its introduction. What I would love to know is will 365 intergrate with Windows Mobile 7? Stay tuned for an update on prices and a release date for the UK.

One thing that can sometimes cause confusion is Microsoft’s re-branding efforts – what IS the difference between WSS, SharePoint Portal Server and MOSS??? WSS is the core building block of the technology and is included free on Windows 2003 and 2008 servers, it allows you to create sites and do the basic “SharePoint” stuff. SharePoint Portal Server (2003) is the old name for the full bells and whistles system which is now called Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Ok then, now onto the point of this post, MOSS 2007 can greatly improve organisational effectiveness, to such a degree that it matters to everyone who runs a business. As with most, if not all software, there is the caveat of the requirement for proper deployment and training, but that is another post all together.

I have just made quite a bold statement, which I am sure other people would love to debate so please feel free to comment at the bottom of the post. I will do my best to explain the core reasons that make SharePoint completely indispensable for SpiderGroup and our clients.

The first thing that I will cite is the ability to access vital company information anywhere you can get an internet connection, which in itself is not that remarkable seeing the current usage of the internet. I guess at this point I should let you into my own personal loathing of VPN’s (Virtual Private Networks), all of our support people here at SpiderGroup know not to answer any question I pose to them as “log on to the VPN”, with that in mind the network file store has never been a great solution for allowing everyone to access vital company documents. What’s more with a network file store there is the inherent problem with people overwriting important files and the hassle trying to work out which is the most recent version of a document. One of the core strengths of SharePoint is its document management features, fully integrated into the Office Suite (probably the main reason they re-branded it to MOSS). It provides you with a much better way of working, saving hours of wasted time and prevents heartbreak when you realise someone has overwritten the proposal you spent all last night working on.

Whilst we are on the subject of documents, I guess it is worth pointing out that 99% of businesses I know run on Excel. Yes they will have an accounting package that they use for their general ledger and do their invoicing from, but the real nitty gritty of planning, budgeting and management reporting is done in Excel, whether you like it or not Excel has a fundamental part to play in modern business. With that said, one of the “killer” features of MOSS is something called Excel Services, which is a way of presenting real-time excel information through a web page without the need to have Excel running. This might not seem particularly noteworthy, but it actually provides a critical bridge between operational documents and live reporting dashboards.

Meeting workspaces are an area worth mentioning, if like us you having repeating weekly or monthly meetings, you can create a meeting site that has a list of all the dates of the meeting allowing you to easily navigate forward and backward to see what was done in the last meeting. This is really useful as it is a single place for reports, minutes and actions and easily allows people that are joining the meeting over the phone or video conference to see the same information as everyone else.

Due to the way that security is handled and coupled with the system being web based, it is relatively simple to create special sections for your clients, supplier and partners. We use this extensively with our clients, allowing us to collaborate and share vital information whilst we are working on a project with them. What kind of added value do you think your clients will perceive in your service if you are able to provide a simple, attractive repository of all information related to your work together. When a client says, where is that document that you were talking about? You can direct them to the relevant section of their portal. One killer feature added in to this is alerting, with a couple of clicks you can make sure that when any content is added or updated that you receive an email informing you that there has been a change. This is particularly useful if you have lots of areas that are important to you.

The last key benefit that I will highlight in this post is that SharePoint should be considered to be your Official Company Knowledge Repository. The system should be setup so that all policies, procedures, templates, contracts … in fact anything that is important for the company to function. This then allows any member of staff to find the knowledge they require to properly perform the companies business, the way to best think about this is, if the office we are in burnt down could we continue to do business. If the correct knowledge is stored in SharePoint, then once people have somewhere to sit, a computer and a phone (at home?) then your business will continue.

There is so much more to this technology that i don’t have time to go into now – such as personal sites, custom databases, intelligent forms and workflow management and of course the live reporting dashboards that get managers so excited. There will be more about these to come in my next few posts but hope you enjoyed the intro to one of the most visionary products from Microsoft.

Firstly it is still in Beta testing mode – this means you have no service level agreement with Google. They can take the whole system down without warning, meaning guess what…..none of your staff can work! They also state in the terms and conditions when you signup that they cannot guarantee the safety of your data and are free to use your data for marketing purposes if they please. Brilliant!

Once you are in, you’re locked in - People for years have complained that they are locked into Microsoft’s software stack. Well if you start using Google Apps you’re now in a similar situation! Any smart company should put in place a plan for the future. What if you come to realise you didn’t want to host your application on the Google App Engine anymore? Good luck, almost everything you are given access to is proprietary — that means all your data is locked into a format that isn’t like a traditional relational database. This could turn into a disaster for your business if you rely on a custom built app.

It’s free right? Errr…. - Well, ok so for a small business the attraction of a free suite of office applications and a way to stay your documents and collaborate with clients/colleagues can be very tempting. However what happens when something goes wrong? Do you think Google has a call centre full of support staff to help? Well the answer is NO. You can pay more for additional support but this was supposed to be free right? Check out this genuine response to a support request;

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to send us your message. This is an
auto-response with admin support resources. You won’t receive a response
from a member of our team.

To learn more about Google Apps, please visit the Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/a, or by clicking ‘Help’ in your control
panel.

Many administrators are also finding quick and accurate information from
the Google Apps Help Discussion at http://groups.google.com/group/hosted.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

Thanks for that oh wonderful Google. Choosing a ‘Cloud’ IT provider like www.spidergroup.com means you have dedicated support staff waiting to fix any problem you might encounter. You get a defined service level agreement and the knowledge that you are as important as the next client, and will never be ignored!

Some of Google’s problems already;

http://www.macworld.com/article/57017/2007/03/googleapps.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/130187/google_apps_gmail_faces_downtime_problems.html