When we heard that Microsoft was preparing the way for devoted Outlook users to join the likes of Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and many others, we were overjoyed to discover that there was indeed a beta program which we could take part in.
In today’s posting, we will take our readers through a brief overview of what the Microsoft Office 365® beta looks like, and how interested parties can apply to join ourselves and many others in distancing ourselves from the laptop and embracing new technologies found in hand-held devices such as smartphones and tablets.
Beta?! Where do I sign up?
If our readers are looking to join the Microsoft Office 365® beta project, they can place their name on the list HERE. Clicking the ‘Join the Beta’ button will provide two different selections; one for Small Business and the other being Enterprise. For the sake of continuity, we’ll be previewing the ‘Small Business’ version in today’s posting.
What does it do?
Once accepted, our readers will be able to log in to their account as an admin, which will place them on the ‘Home’ tab of their Microsoft Office 365® account, where the following options are outlined. There’s also a well-produced demo available HERE.
This is what we did first, where others have started and where we recommend our readers begin. The set up process was painless and took no more than a couple clicks.
The main reason for using Microsoft Office 365®. Outlook can be cumbersome, especially on aging PCs … once fully integrated into an online atmosphere, Outlook as part of Microsoft Office 365® will surely be the choice for many of the world’s most devoted email handlers.
This feature, Lync, also looks promising. Think Facebook chat meets GoToMeeting meets Google Voice…
We all work better, together! Collaboration is key in today’s world, and there’s no reason we wouldn’t want to keep key documents updated for team members to access as needed.
There are a couple other sections to this ‘Home’ tab of Microsoft Office 365®, including resources for importing contacts, setting up Microsoft Office 365® on mobile devices and for downloading. There’s also a handy ‘Community’ section, which allows Microsoft Office 365® users to ask community members questions via the provided forums, a Microsoft Office 365® blog curated by none other than Microsoft Office 365®’s engineering team and an overview of all community features and interactive capabilities.
All in all, this first peek into Microsoft Office 365® is as exciting as first discovering online tools we use each and every day (Facebook, Gmail, Twitter … we’re looking your direction) and, if it works as well as we believe it will for our company, we will have no reason to look elsewhere.
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Coming up next … exploring Outlook within Microsoft Office 365® (beta)!
