Office 365 - Meeting the Developers

Dean went down to Reading last Friday to Microsoft to the Office 365 launch event. Bringing a change in plans and newer ways to implement Office into your business. After watching a demo presented by James Akrigg, Head of Technology for Partners, Dean got the rare opportunity to meet James afterward.

 

After this opportunity Dean said "Having this opportunity to talk to the developers who can answer these questions is golden. This knowledge that I now have from asking the right people will now allow me to progress and show customers that Office 365 is truly the way forward."

 

If you have any questions regarding Office 365 please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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The new Office 365

Why should you care about the new Office 365? If the e-mail, document sharing and storage, instant messaging, Microsoft Office and more cloud based solutions doesn’t get you excited, then how about a fancy new interface to make it even easier to get around than it was before.

As Microsoft prepare for the release of the latest cloud upgrades for Office 365 for business tomorrow, people are eagerly awaiting Office 2013 which will roll out alongside upgrades. Office Professional Plus will now be 2013 instead of 2010, and people who already have the subscription will be updated and upgraded if they haven’t already.

New interfaces within the portal will arise as newer ways of getting around and offering its social prowess as people are able to update the social feed when an important document is uploaded. Getting to grips with the newer and more fluid interface will be a smooth learning curve, there are few differences and things that are different are easy enough to learn about. You can now preview documents before opening them in SkyDrive Pro and SharePoint, allowing you view the document in a window when you click on more options, this saves time as opening and closing documents that were labelled badly or incorrectly can be inefficient.

I cannot wait to move our customers to this newer version of Office 365, giving them a neater and more aesthetic experience, still with all the great functionality of previous software.

 

If you have any questions on the new Office 365, please give us a call.

Follow us at @EitexUK

Office365 - bridging the gap between on-premise and the cloud

Switching on Office 365 is easy, you simply choose the service or package you want, enter your payment details and away you go! It's certainly much easier than installing as server to do the same job.

But where does this leave my dusty old servers? Are they still needed? I better not switch them off just in case.

What about my email, how do you get it from the server to the cloud? Also I have read that I can access my documents from home and on the go, how do I do that?

The office365.com website is great, but I can never just find the answer I need for 'my' business.

Welcome Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partner!
Luckily Microsoft recommended a Cloud Partner that could work with me and my business. They recommended Eitex in this instance who took the time to understand my business, and the steps I needed to take to get my business into the cloud.

We didn't move everything in one go, in fact we started with email. Eitex performed an 'email migration' to get my email to the cloud. I was then able to switch off my Exchange email server.

Then with a little SharePoint development I was able to move company files and folders to the cloud which were accessible to everyone. We didn't switch off the File Server as Eitex suggested a blended approach. We dont need old data in the cloud, so it made sense to leave old data on the server!

There are some exciting new communication tools also called Lync which gives functionality I never had before. This includes working on documents together with colleagues in other offices, video conferencing and private instant messaging.

We are now looking to move our CRM system to the cloud, another exciting journay there I'm sure.

I finally saw the real value of Office 365, but importantly the Microsoft Cloud Partner who helped me get there!

The Future is Bright with The Cloud

SMB’s no longer need to spend large sums of money to implement the same standard of technology as larger corporations.

Cloud services offer huge benefits over traditional on-premise server based IT solutions including:

• Reduced costs – less hardware, software, licenses and support overheads.
• Improved Accessibility – access your email, documents and data such as quotes, invoices and manuals from anywhere with an internet connection, at any time .
• Increased Productivity – providing staff with the ability to work from anywhere means that winter weather, transport problems and strikes don’t have to interrupt your business!

In addition, Microsoft Office365 comes with Lync technology which provides the ability to hold secure virtual meetings whilst sharing and collaborating on documents and project materials with staff, suppliers and clients.

Eitex are now Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partners which means we are helping businesses of all sizes take advantage of the benefits offered by online “Cloud” services such as Microsoft Office365.

If you would like to try Office365 you can do so for free here.

For more information on Eitex and Office365 visit our website at: http://www.eitex.co.uk/microsoftoffice365.asp

Pay monthly for IT Software and Hardware!

You can now pay monthly for your IT hardware and software!

-       Don’t commit valuable capital to IT purchases.

-       Always have the latest technology for a manageble monthly installment.

We are able to provide the following at a low monthly cost:

-       HP Desktop Computers from £14.00 per month* 

-       HP Laptops from £14.00 per month*

-       HP Servers from £20.00 per month*

-       Microsoft Office Premium Plus from £8.00 per user per month**

-       Sage 50 Accounts from £20 per month*

-       Microsoft Exchange from £3.25 per user per month

-       Microsoft CRM, SharePoint, Lync and more

*Price is based on 36 month lease

**Price is based on Cloud Services

Please note the minumum capital purchase is £1000.00 + vat.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of upgrading all or some of your equipment please get in touch!