For years now, Microsoft Office has been the linchpin of business and academic computing. If you have made a text document or spreadsheet on a computer in the last 20 years, the chances are excellent that you were using a Microsoft Office product. Office 365 marks Microsoft’s effort to bring their practical tool suite into the age of digital collaboration, multiple devices and cloud computing. The results have proven to be impressive and the benefits to an organization or office are undeniable.
Outlook Anywhere
Many 365 Subscriptions come with Outlook online, allowing you to sign in from any browser and access your calendar, contacts and emails. This is an excellent tool when working from home or switching devices within the office or on the road.
Invite Collaboration
Sharing a Word document for another user to edit is as simple as pushing a button. The individual you’re sharing with will then receive an email, inviting them to view the document. That user can open the document, download it to their own device, or edit it within a browser, with saved changes being synced back to you. This makes team reports and group projects a breeze and solves the problem of draft confusion—having multiple copies of a file in different states of completion and losing track of the one you need.
Stable and Secure
Microsoft is the world’s largest provider of business software and as a result, you can be certain that they are maintaining a high level of security and industry standard compliance. The Microsoft servers are spread throughout the country in some of the largest data centers ever constructed, making down time extremely unusual.
Always Be Up To Date
Office licenses for the standalone software suite are expensive, so many businesses wait for a computer to go down or be replaced before purchasing the latest version of software. With 365, users are added for a monthly fee and each user is entitled to download the full, latest version of Office on multiple machines, eliminating situations where some people in the organization are using 2019, while others are stuck in 2016.
Keep In Touch With Teams
At MCT, our techs use the 365 messaging app, Teams, to send queries or reminders to onsite associates. The chat feature has come a long way over the years and Teams features seamless integration with OneDrive and SharePoint for easy file sharing and collaboration. Teams also offers solid video and voice meeting capabilities, with a calendar that syncs beautifully with Outlook.
365 is the sort of solution that Microsoft would like everyone to use eventually. First, from a business model perspective, it is “software as a service” which many developers and tech-minded analysts will tell you is the direction we’re headed across the board. This model does bring a degree of choice to customers however; with several tiers of subscriptions, it’s the closest Microsoft has come to offering a la carte options for the Office suite. It’s also clear that Microsoft is placing a lot of attention and care into developing new solutions and improvements for 365—which means in the coming years, users will be treated to cutting edge software that offers unprecedented functionality. If you’re interested in learning more about what Office 365 could do for your organization, call Mankato Computer Technology today.