Today Microsoft announced the general availability of all of the software and services related to its Office 2013 platform. This includes the Professional and Pro Plus versions of the Office client suite as well as on-premises and hosted versions of its Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync server products. The company also announced the availability of an update to its Office 365 software-as-a-service for businesses, with three new subscription plans.
Office 2013 Professional Plus includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, the Lync chat and conferencing client, OneNote, the Access desktop database, Publisher, and InfoPath designer and Filler for creating SharePoint workflows. It also includes SkyDrive Pro, which can connect to SharePoint libraries and personal storage space, synchronizing files between the cloud and the user's PC.
In addition to its existing Office 365 for Business plans, Microsoft has launched three new service subscriptions:
- Office 365 ProPlus is a subscription version of Office Professional 2013 (similar to Office 365 Home Premium), which allows the subscriber to run "streamed" copies of Office Professional 2013 on up to five PCs. The installation uses application virtualization and can run alongside locally installed versions of Office without conflicts. The service costs $144 per user per year and is included as part of the update to Office 365 Enterprise premium versions as well as a new midsize-business service offering.
- Office 365 Midsize Business is a new mid-size offering designed for companies with up to 250 employees. It provides integration with on-site Active Directory services, along with online versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. The plan, which also includes phone support, costs $180 a year per user.
- Office 365 Small Business Premium is a new plan for companies with up to 10 employees. SBP includes Exchange, SharePoint and Lync services as well as streamed office applications, but it doesn't include the enterprise features of the backend services such as e-discovery. It's priced at $150 per user per year.
We'll be publishing full reviews of the new Office 365 and Exchange 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Lync 2013 servers over the next few days. It's clear from the pricing and packaging of the plans—along with our experience with Microsoft's latest offerings—that they've been tuned to be more competitive with Google Apps for Business, while accelerating adoption of the new Office client suite. The additional security and e-discovery features included in the latest release of Exchange Online and the Exchange 2013 Enterprise server, for example, are an answer to Google 's Vault, part of the $10-per-month-per user premium version of the Google Apps for Business service.
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