What is Microsoft Office 365?

Overview of Office 365

Office 365 is Microsoft’s premier cloud-based productivity suite that delivers software as a service (SaaS) to users around the world. 

 

Core Components of Office 365

The core services in Office 365 consist of cloud based equivalents of three of Microsoft’s premier server products as listed below.

·         Exchange Online

·         SharePoint Online

·         Lync Online

·         Office 365 Pro Plus

·         Windows Azure Active Directory (AAD)

These applications enable organizations to move their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud or to implement some hybrid options, depending on need.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory

Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Microsoft Azure AD), is an online instance of Active Directory that provides authentication and authorization services for other Microsoft cloud offerings, including Microsoft Azure and Windows Intune.

Authentication through Microsoft Azure AD can be on a cloud-only basis, through directory synchronization (with optional password synchronization), or include full integration with on-premises directory services through support for Active Directory Federation Services or other SSO providers.

Exchange Online

Microsoft Exchange Online in Office 365 is the latest release of messaging and collaboration platform, for composing, reading, and storing email, calendar, contact, and task information in Microsoft Outlook®, Outlook Web Access, or Outlook Mobile.

Exchange Online supports access from most mobile devices, including BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia, and Windows Phone.

 

SharePoint Online

Using Microsoft SharePoint Online, you can share important documents, insights, and status updates with colleagues. You can keep teams in sync and manage important projects, find vital documents, and locate people easily.

Using SharePoint can also helps to stay up-to-date with company information and news, regardless of whether you are in or out of the office.

Lync Online

Lync Online provides presence and instant messaging information, so users can identify whether people are available and then chat, call, and video conference with each other. 

By using Lync Online, you can also create online meetings with audio, video, and web conferencing for up to 250 people, including anonymous users from outside the organization. 

To improve productivity, Lync Online provides integration with users’ calendars in Microsoft Exchange and also enables the “click to communicate” feature in Outlook, SharePoint, and other Office applications.

Office 365 ProPlus

Some Office 365 plans include Office 365 Pro Plus, which is a downloadable version of Microsoft’s productivity suite of applications, including Word® 2013, Excel® 2013, PowerPoint® 2013, Outlook 2013, Access® 2013, Publisher 2013, OneNote 2013, InfoPath®, and the Lync 2013 client. 

There are also Web App versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Office 365 ProPlus supports streaming deployment, which enables users to click the application installation icon and start using the application itself while the program installs in the background. 

This deployment method also enables users to run Office 365 Pro Plus alongside earlier versions of Microsoft Office.

Optional Components of Office 365

Organizations can also subscribe to optional components within Office 365 that can enhance their use of this cloud-based service and provide users with additional facilities to increase productivity. These optional components include Yammer, Project Online, Project Pro for Office 365, and Microsoft Office Visio® Pro for Office 365.

For more information about Office 365, visit the Microsoft Store Page.

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