Microsoft to launch Office 365 Soon

Microsoft is launching its cloud offering Office 365 later this month with a splashy
event in NYC.

Office 365 will be a subscription service that combines online versions of Word, Excel
and PowerPoint. And Office 365 will allow users to get to their mail, calendar, and
contacts from virtually anywhere on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.
Microsoft plans a rollout event June 28 in a swanky Soho gallery space used for
corporate events, according to an invitation sent out to the media.
There, CEO Steve Ballmer will talk about the Office 365, what Microsoft calls
its next generation cloud productivity service which brings collaboration to
everyone.
While Skylight Soho might not be the venue of choice for a lot of small companies
that are watching every dollar, Microsoft sees great potential in landing
cost-conscious customers who run their own businesses.
Microsoft is offering Office 365 subscriptions for as low as $6 a month,aimed
at small businesses that don’t want to manage their own servers.
Tom Rizzo, senior director of Microsoft Online Services, told me recently that
the new Office 365 offering was in beta with 100,000 organizations and 2.5 million seats.
Rizzo said that there is a lot of interest in cloud services. But he was candid.
He said he expects small and mid-size businesses to be the first to adopt because
they have less to move to the cloud. What he called the “pro-sumer,” an interior
-designer or other one-person operation will be quick to move over, said Rizzo,said
about 70 percent of those who signed up for the Beta were small businesses.
At the same time, he said large enterprises will probably move to the cloud more
cautiously and maybe incrementally. Maybe moving mobile workers to the cloud
first, for example. He said he expects many larger businesses to be hybrids,
wanting a mix of cloud storage options to go along with keeping some storage

in house.