June 28th 2011 our team was at the launch of Office 365  in Bellevue WA home of Microsoft 

Call us today to move you and your company through the process of Microsoft in the Cloud Services 

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About Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses is a subscription service that combines Microsoft Office Web Apps with a set of web-enabled tools that are easy to learn and use, that work with your existing hardware, and that come backed by the robust security, reliability, and control you need to run your business. Office 365 for professionals and small businesses comes with the following capabilities:

Email and Calendar

You can access email, calendars, and contacts across PCs, the web, and mobile phones. Email and calendaring capabilities enable you to:

Work from virtually anywhere: Work from almost anywhere and get automatically updated email, calendar, and contacts on the devices you use most including PCs, Macintosh computers, iPhone, Android phones, Blackberry smartphones, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phones.

Easily manage your email: Get professional, easy-to-manage email. Office 365 provides each user with a 25-gigabyte (GB) mailbox and allows individual email messages of up to 35 megabytes (MB). Connect with Microsoft Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2007 and use all of the rich Outlook functionality you already know and use, whether you are connected to the internet at home or in the office or even if you are working offline.

Simplify scheduling: Easily schedule meetings by sharing calendars and viewing them side by side so you can see colleagues’ availability and suggested meeting times from your calendar. Access your email, calendar, and contacts from nearly any web browser while you keep the rich, familiar Outlook experience with Microsoft Outlook Web Apps.

Enjoy business-class security: Help protect your organization from spam and viruses with Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, which includes multiple filters and virus-scanning engines.

 

Office Web Apps

Office Web Apps is designed to work with the tools you already know, like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft OneNote, and Microsoft PowerPoint. With Office Web Apps you can:

Edit together: Simultaneously edit Excel spreadsheets and OneNote notebooks with others in real time, and see exactly who is editing and viewing your documents.

Enjoy mobile access: Access and view files in high fidelity from your mobile device.

Ensure consistent formatting from desktop to web: Ensure that users see files with consistent formatting when they move between Office Web Apps and desktop Office applications.

Websites and Collaboration

Create websites with easy-to-use tools. Share documents and collaborate on the web with colleagues, partners, suppliers. Website and collaboration functionality enables you to:

Share files and documents: Create a central place to access all of your documents and business information from virtually anywhere.

Keep teams and workgroups synchronized: Manage and share important documents to help teams work together efficiently and create, edit and review documents and proposals in real-time.

Market your business using a simple public-facing website: Easily design and maintain a professional-looking public website with simple, user-friendly tools.

Leverage the power of Microsoft Access: Manage, share, and edit your inventory, product catalogs, customer records, or any other Microsoft Access databases online with Access Services.

 

IM and Online Meetings

Connect with people in new ways with instant messaging (IM), audio/video calls and online meetings. IM and online meeting capabilities enable you to:

Connect from virtually anywhere: Find and connect with friends or peers from virtually anywhere through rich presence, IM, PC-to-PC audio/video calls, and online meetings. Use the presence indicator to see when colleagues, partners, and suppliers are online and available.

Online meetings: Conduct rich online meetings—including audio, video, and web conferencing—with people both inside and outside of your business.

Share your desktop and more: Share your desktop, online whiteboards, and presentations with colleagues and partners inside and outside of your organization.

Click to communicate: Use click-to-communicate functionality with other users of Office 365, Windows Live, and Windows Live Messenger.

 

 

 

 

Licensing

Office 365 is sold through the User Subscription License (USL) model.  Every individual end user of Office 365 service must be assigned with a USL. 

 

Key USL Terms

·       Subscriptions are contracted between Microsoft and a customer through the Microsoft Online Service Agreement (MOSA).  For more details on the MOSA, go here. A single subscription contains one or more USLs.

·       The USL is tied to the user. Within the context of this document, “user” refers to end user of the service.

·       When purchasing a subscription through the Microsoft Online Services Portal the minimum purchase requirement is one USL and the maximum purchase requirement - is 50 USLs. If you need more than 50 USLs Office 365 for professionals and small businesses is not the right service for you—you need Office 365 for enterprises.

·       All USLs are purchased through a subscription for a one (1) month term. The subscription runs month-to-month and automatically renews every month until you cancel it.

 

Pricing

For the purpose of this guide, the terms “Pricing, Price, Prices” refer to the cost of a single USL.  All prices are stated in currency per user per month.  For latest Office 365 pricing, go here.

 

Office 365 Plans for Professionals and Small Businesses

Plans are listed in the Microsoft Online Services purchase catalog and define the types of pricing and features available when purchasing subscriptions.

Office 365 Trial Plan

Customers can sign up for an Office 365 trial plan. The trial allows you to experience Office 365 functionality free of charge for a period of 30 days. 

·        The trial is available to customers with a Microsoft Online Services ID.  For new customers, an ID will be generated as part of the trial signup process.  Before signing up for your trial, you are also required to sign the Microsoft Online Subscription Agreement.

·        The trial subscription plan provides the full functionality of the paid subscription plan, with the following exceptions:  (1) limited to 10 users for a 30-day period, and (2) you cannot point your custom domain to a trial account.

The following is the catalog item of the Office 365 trial:

 

Office 365 Trial Plan

Microsoft Office 365 (Plan P1)

 

Office 365 Paid Plan

A paid subscription plan is available to customers with a Microsoft Online Services ID.  For new customers, an ID will be generated as part of the trial signup process.  Before purchasing your subscription, you are also required to sign the Microsoft Online Subscription Agreement.

The following is the catalog item of the Office 365 paid plan:

 

Office 365 Paid Plan

Microsoft Office 365 (Plan P1)

 

Purchasing your Office 365 Subscription

Once you have made the decision to purchase a subscription, you have your choice of two options:

1.      Convert an existing trial subscription to a paid subscription: If you choose to convert your trial subscription to a paid subscription of the same plan, the end users on the trial subscription are automatically transferred (with service data) to the paid subscription.

2.      Purchase a new paid subscription: If you choose to purchase a new paid subscription, or an unrelated (different) paid plan to your trial subscription, you will need to manually assign users to the paid subscription.

The subscription term will begin on the day you convert to or purchase the new paid subscription plan.

 

Managing your Office 365 Subscription

Within this section you will find information that will help you manage and make changes to your Office 365 subscriptions.

Adding and Reducing USLs

Adding USLs

You can add USLs to an existing Office 365 subscription at any time in the Microsoft Online Portal under the manage subscriptions tab.

·        Considerations when you are adding USLs:  You can add USLs to your subscription at any time at the current subscription purchase price.

·        The added USLs will follow your original subscription anniversary date for renewals.

·        New USLs added between billing cycles will be billed on a prorated basis in the next billing cycle.

 

Reducing USLs

You can reduce USLs from your existing Office 365 subscription at any time in the Microsoft Online Services Portal under the manage subscriptions tab. There is no penalty fee for reducing USLs.

·        After reducing USLs, reconcile your subscription by manually disabling the corresponding users through the Microsoft Online Services Portal.

·        If you don’t reconcile your subscription, an error message will appear on the portal indicating that there are more users using the services than USLs purchased.

 

Cancelling your Office 365 Subscription

You can cancel your Office 365 subscription at any time without a penalty. You can cancel the subscription in the Microsoft Online Services Portal under the manage subscriptions tab.

Post cancellation the subscription/service is in active state until the end of the month. At the end of the month the subscription enters a 7-day grace period. During the grace period a warning message is displayed in the portal but end users continue to access the service. After the 7-day grace period the services goes into a 90-day disabled state. During the disabled state the end users cannot access the service but the administrator can access the service and retrieve data.

Auto Renewal

All subscriptions are set to auto-renew by default at the time of purchase.  Every month your subscription and USLs renew at the current market price. You can cancel the auto-renew feature to stop the subscription and USLs from renewing.

 

Paying your Office 365 Subscription

You can make payments using an International credit or debit card. VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB are accepted.

You will be billed in advance every month based upon the number of USLs included in your subscription. An electronic statement is posted on your Microsoft Online Portal showing the amount your credit/debit card was charged.

When you add or reduce USLs in the middle of a billing cycle, these changes will be reflected in the next month’s statement, and charges will be prorated to the date of the transaction.

 

Support

Support is available to you for technical and billing related issues.

1.      Community Support for technical assistance: The community forum is a place where you or anyone using Office 365 can post a question and others in the forum can answer.

2.      Online Support for billing assistance: For billing and subscription issues, create a service request in the Microsoft Online Services Portal to communicate with an Office 365 support representative. To do this, in the header, click Admin. In the left pane, under Support, click Service requests, and then follow the instructions. The online support option is available 24 hours- a- day, seven days –a- week in all markets where Office 365 is available.

More information from trusted sources are available to you online, including the Office 365 Blog and the Office 365 Wikis.

 

Microsoft Online Services Partner

You may work with a Microsoft partner who serves as your subscription advisor and provides you with the sales, support, and technical expertise to set up and maintain your subscription. You can add and authorize a partner to assist with your subscription at the time or purchase or at a later date through the Microsoft Online Services Portal.

Partner availability depends on the services you use and the country or region where you will use those services. You can also change or remove the partner from your subscription at any time. You can find a partner at the Office 365 Marketplace.  If you are adding a partner, or changing the partner for your subscription, you will need the Microsoft Partner ID number.

Find more information about adding, changing, or removing partners from your subscription here.

Global Availability      

 

Service Availability

Office 365 is available in the following countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungry, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, United States, UK.

Languages Supported

Office 365 is supported in the following languages:

English, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish.

Currencies Supported

Office 365 Plans are priced in the following currencies:

AUD, CAD, CHF, DKK, EUR, GBP, JPY, NOK, NZD, SEK, USD.

Data Centers

Data centers are the actual facilities where your data is stored by Microsoft.

Microsoft Online Services uses data centers located in the United States, Singapore, and Ireland to best serve subscribers. A data center will be assigned based on the location of your organization.

Countries served by each data center: 

United States Data Center	Singapore Data Center	Ireland Data Center
Canada	Australia	Austria
Costa Rica	Hong Kong	Belgium
Columbia	India	Cyprus
Mexico	Japan	Czech Republic
Peru	Malaysia	Denmark
Puerto Rico	New Zealand	Finland
Trinidad and Tobago	Singapore	France
United States		Germany
		Greece
		Hungary
		Ireland
		Israel
		Italy
		Luxembourg
		Netherlands
		Norway
		Poland
		Portugal
		Romania
		Spain
		Sweden
		Switzerland
		United Kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit the Microsoft Data Centers for more information.  

 

Service Level Agreement

Microsoft Online Services guarantees 99.9%uptime for all Office 365 services in their Service Level Agreement (SLA).  These service levels are financially backed.  That means, if Microsoft does not meet the terms of your Service Level Agreement, you are eligible to receive service credits equal to a percentage off your total monthly bill.  You can find the full Service Level Agreement here.

These are the service credit tiers for any loss of monthly uptime:

 

Monthly Uptime Percentage	Service Credit
< 99.9%	25%
< 99%	50%
< 95%	100%

 

Glossary

 

Microsoft Online Services Portal (Portal) – The Web portal that customers use to try or buy Office 365 Plans, manage active Office 365 subscriptions, and/or manage user accounts and other service capabilities included in their Office 365 subscriptions.

 

Billing Administrator – This administrator role can buy or manage Office 365 subscriptions and update billing information, payment options, etc.

 

Service Administrator – This administrator role can create or manage user accounts, manage service requests, and monitor service health.

 

Global Administrator – This administrator role can act as both the billing and service administrator.

 

Microsoft Online Services ID –The unique ID that is required to administer or use Office 365 services. The Microsoft Online Services ID can be created when you try or buy an Office 365 plan for the first time.

Plan –Office 365 Plans are listed on the online services catalog within the Microsoft Online Services Portal.  Each plan includes a set of online services capabilities or functionalities.

Pricing, Price, Prices - For the purpose of this guide the terms “Pricing, Price, Prices” refer to the customer cost of a single User Subscription License (USL).  All prices are stated in currency per user per month.

Subscription – A subscription represents the detailed attribute of an agreement between Microsoft and a customer who has subscribed to a Microsoft Online Services plan.

 

User Subscription License – Microsoft Online Services are subscription-based and provide access to software and services. Licensing for Office 365 requires a User Subscription License (USL) for each user of the service.

 

Billing in Advance – Billing in advance is a billing structure in which a customer is billed at a predetermined rate for Microsoft Online Services before s/he uses the service.

 

Microsoft Online Services Agreement (MOSA) – The contract between Microsoft and you for Office 365 services purchased.

 

Service Request (SR) – A Service Request is how customers engage Microsoft Online Services support for issues. 

 

Microsoft Online Services Partner - A partner who has signed the Microsoft Online Services Partner Agreement (MOSPA) and is certified to sell Office 365.

 

Partner of Record (POR) - The term used to reference the Microsoft Online Services Partner tied to a specific subscription. The Partn