As a part of its continued emphasis to enable easy access to cost effective business productivity solutions on the cloud, Microsoft Corporation today announced commercial availability of Microsoft Office 365 in India. Offering very attractive prices starting $2 per user per month, (excluding applicable taxes) this will allow SMBs and enterprise customers to access Microsoft’s popular e-mail, collaboration, conferencing and productivity capabilities online. Customers can access the entire Office 365 suite directly from http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/office365/online-software.aspx and pay a use-based monthly subscription fee, and thus manage their IT needs cost effectively (lower capex). Over the last 45 days, more than 12000 organizations, have signed up for Office 365 trials. Globally over 200000 customers have signed up, creating one of Microsoft’s largest beta programs for businesses.  For the first time ever, customers can also avail of Microsoft Office, the world’s most popular productivity offering, on subscription basis off the cloud.  

This launch is part of Microsoft’s comprehensive Cloud Services Strategy.  Almost all of Microsoft’s on premise enterprise solutions are already on the cloud, and the launch of Office 365 takes it to the next level. Today Microsoft’s customers can choose to deploy either cloud based or on premise solutions, or both, depending on their need, and in turn experience the flexibility and cost control needed to drive higher business productivity. 

Office 365 is built ground up with an updated platform and new infrastructure investments and is backed by the industry’s most rigorous financially-backed SLA, and will be available in different ‘packages’ depending on the size and need of the customer organization.

·         The Office 365 plan for Small Businesses is optimized for organizations with 25 users or less, and delivers a full range of productivity, communications and collaboration capabilities to meet their business needs. At approximately $6 per user per month, this plan includes Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online.

·         For larger organizations, there is a range of Office 365 plans to address different usage scenarios as well as deliver a more comprehensive set of capabilities for both information workers as well as field forces.  These plans start for as little as $2 for basic e-mail to $27 per user per month. This includes the most advanced versions of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online as well as an option to get the full power of Office Professional Plus desktop software, along with Office Web Apps

In the coming months, Microsoft Office 365 will also provide significant opportunities to a huge ecosystem of partners that will sell, customize and p