Office 365 at a Glance

This is my roundup of Microsoft Office 365 at a glance.  I’ve included a brief summary of the key services and features direct from the Microsoft Office 365 Service Descriptions, as well as a massive feature list of the Office 365 Services at the end of this post.

At the start of every year, I do an extreme roundup of the Microsoft platform.  It helps me see the forest for the trees, understand the big bets, and make sense of the overall Microsoft platform.  It also helps me anticipate growth, jobs, declines, etc.  As part of the process, I try to share what I learn because I imagine a lot of people benefit from the ability to see the Microsoft platform at a glance.

With that in mind, let’s begin …

The main things you need to know to figure out Office 365 are:

• Office 365 refers to the online services:  Exchange Online, Lync Online, SharePoint Online, etc. 
• Don’t confuse Office 365 with the on-premises versions: Lync Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, etc.  (Once you recognize this naming convention, then it’s a lot easier to parse what you find on Microsoft.com, MSDN, and TechNet.)
• The key way to figure out what’s in Office 365 is to read the Microsoft Office 365 Service Descriptions.
• Don’t confuse the Microsoft Office 365 Service Descriptions with the older Business Productivity Online Services Service Descriptions. (I fell for this.  I was reading a Service Description for Exchange Online wondering why it seemed dated – it was.)
• You can find feature comparisons between the on-premises versions and the online versions within the Microsoft Office 365 Service Description documents.  For example, you can see Lync Server vs. Lync Online, Exchange Server vs. Exchange Online, SharePoint Server vs. SharePoint Online.

Office 365 Service Descriptions

The Office 365 Service Descriptions are the important documents for understanding what the Office 365 services actually are:

• Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving Service Description
• Microsoft Exchange Online Enterprise Service Description
• Microsoft Lync Online for Enterprises Service Description
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus Service Description
• Microsoft Office Web Apps Service Description
• Microsoft SharePoint Online for Enterprises Service Description
• Office 365 Identity Service Description
• Office 365 Mobility Solutions Service Description
• Office 365 Security and Service Continuity Service Description
• Office 365 Support for Apple Mac and iOS Devices
• Office 365 Support Service Description

About Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 brings together cloud versions of its most trusted communications and collaboration products with the latest version desktop suite. Office 365 is designed to meet the needs of organizations of all sizes—from sole proprietors and small, mid-sized, and large businesses to government agencies to educational institutions—helping you save time, money, and free up valuable resources.
Key Office 365 benefits include:

• Access to email, documents, contacts, and calendars on almost any smartphone or tablet.
• Simple and secure collaboration with colleagues and business partners.
• Seamless functioning with Microsoft Office and other programs.
• Comprehensive solutions including desktop productivity applications, portals, extranets, instant messaging (IM), voice and video conferencing, web conferencing, email and voice mail.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing options with a financially backed 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.
• Office 365 includes the Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online services.

Common Features Across Microsoft Office 365

Cloud services offered by Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises are designed to help meet the need for robust security, 24/7 reliability, and user productivity.
Each service is designed for reliability, availability, and performance with a financially backed service level agreement (SLA) for a guaranteed 99.9-percent scheduled uptime. Microsoft deploys patches, security updates, and back-end upgrades, helping to eliminate the time and effort organizations spend managing their servers.
Subscribers to Office Professional Plus benefit from a set of features that are common to all of the Microsoft business-class cloud services:

• Secure access: Each offering from Microsoft Office 365 is accessed through 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption. Anyone who intercepts a communication sees only encrypted text.
  Intrusion monitoring: Microsoft continuously monitors the Office 365 systems for any unusual or suspicious activity. If Microsoft detects such activity, it investigates and responds appropriately. In the unlikely event that a significant incident occurs, the customer is notified.
• Security audits: Microsoft regularly assesses the Office 365 infrastructure to ensure that the latest antivirus signatures and required security updates are installed, and that high-level configuration settings are in compliance with Microsoft security policies. For details, refer to the Security and Service Continuity for Enterprises Service Description.
• High availability: Microsoft Office 365 services have a 99.9-percent scheduled uptime. If a customer’s service is affected, Office 365 offers financial remedies subject to the terms and conditions of the SLA. For details, refer to the Service Level Agreement for Microsoft Online Services.
• Service continuity: Redundant network architecture is hosted at geographically dispersed Microsoft data centers to handle unscheduled service outages. Data centers act as backups for each other: If one fails, the affected customers are transferred to another data center with limited interruption of service.
• Microsoft Online Services Portal: This easy-to-use website is the center for activities related to Microsoft Office 365. The portal provides services based on each organization’s specific needs. Prospective subscribers can use the portal to sign up for a free trial. End users accessing the portal can find online help, open Microsoft SharePoint site collections, and launch Microsoft Outlook® Web App. Administrators can manage users, administer services, download tools, and learn about service administration from online help.
• Directory Synchronization tool: For subscribers with Active Directory® directory services deployed on-premises, this tool helps keep the on-premises Active Directory and the Microsoft Office 365 directory synchronized.
• Remote administration: With Microsoft Windows PowerShell™, administrators can perform many tasks using a script or automated process. For example, tasks such as creating users, resetting passwords, assigning licenses, and obtaining service-use data can be fully automated.

Types of Identity in Office 365

Office 365 offers two types of identities:

1. Microsoft Online Services cloud IDs (Cloud Identity) : Users receive cloud credentials—separate from other desktop or corporate credentials—for signing into Office 365 services. The cloud ID password policy is stored in the cloud with the Office 365 service.
2. Federated IDs (Federated Identity) : In companies with on-premises Active Directory®, users can sign into Office 365 services using their Active Directory credentials. The corporate Active Directory authenticates the users, and stores and controls the password policy.

The type of identity affects the user experience, administrative requirements, deployment considerations, and capabilities using Office 365.

For more information about Office 365 Identity, please refer to the Office 365 Identity Service Description.

Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Exchange Online is a hosted messaging solution that delivers the capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server as a cloud-based service. It gives users rich and familiar access to email, calendar, contacts, and tasks across PCs, the web, and mobile devices. With Exchange Online, organizations can take advantage of sophisticated messaging capabilities without the operational burden of on-premises server software.
Exchange Online supports the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® protocol. Exchange ActiveSync provides synchronization of mailbox data between mobile devices and Exchange Online, so users can access their email, calendar, contacts, and tasks on the go.
For more information about Exchange Online, please refer to the Microsoft Exchange Online Service Description.

Microsoft Lync Online

Microsoft Lync Online is a next-generation cloud communications service that connects people in new ways, anytime, from virtually anywhere. Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.

For more information about Lync Online, please refer to the Microsoft Lync Online Service Description.

Microsoft SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online gives you a central place to share documents and information with colleagues and customers. Designed to work with familiar Office applications, it’s easy to save documents directly to SharePoint and work together on proposals and projects in real-time because you have access to the documents and information you need from virtually anywhere.
SharePoint Online helps businesses of all sizes share team documents and track project milestones. You can manage important documents online so the latest versions are always at hand. You can also provide teams with access to critical information and documents when and where they need them, while controlling who can access, read, and share them.
SharePoint Online sites can render on many devices (including Web-enabled mobile phones) using a simplified text-only format. Like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online includes a standardized web-based administrative console that enables your IT administrator to easily manage and set up services for users.
For more information about SharePoint Online, please refer to the Microsoft SharePoint Online Service Description.

Office Professional Plus

The capabilities of Office Professional Plus can be summarized as:  Use Office Anywhere, Work Together, and Bring Ideas to Life.
With Office Professional Plus, users get the latest version of the Microsoft Office applications, seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services, so they can access their documents, email, and calendars from virtually any device. Office Professional Plus includes the new Office Web Apps—online companions to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote®—which let users review and make minor edits to documents directly from a browser.
The flexible pay-as-you-go, per-user licensing of Office Professional Plus is available as part of Office 365 and provides companies with purchasing flexibility; in addition, robust management and deployment tools give companies the IT control to adapt to evolving business needs.

For more information about Office Professional Plus, please refer to the Microsoft Office Professional Plus Service Description.

Microsoft Office Web Apps

Microsoft® Office Web Apps is the online companion to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote® applications that helps users access documents from almost anywhere. Users can view, share, and work on documents online with other users across personal computers, mobile devices, and the web.
Office Web Apps is available to users through Microsoft SharePoint® Online, which is part of Microsoft Office 365. Office Web Apps is also available as a part of Microsoft Windows Live™ and also to business customers through Microsoft Office 2010 volume licensing, Office 365, and document management solutions based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 products.
This document focuses on using Office Web Apps as a part of SharePoint Online.

For more information about Microsoft Office Web Apps, please refer to the Microsoft Office Web Apps Service Description.

Office 365 Suite Subscription Plans

For more information on the Office 365 Suite Subscription Plans, see the Office 365 Suite Subscription Plans page and the Office 365 Plan Advisor Tool.

Features at a Glance for Microsoft Office 365

This is a roundup of Office 365 services at a glance, organized by product.  It’s the balcony view.  By scanning the list, you can get a quick sense of the services.  Then read the actual Office 365 Service Descriptions to find out more.

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