Sometimes It's the Simple Things

Microsoft Office 365 is very much part of Cloud Computing, something which is to be a pancea for businesses if the Cloud evangalists are to be believed. But in order to be useful, any new technology has to have a tangible benefit and sometimes it's the simplest things that cause businesses to adopt new products.

Very briefly, Microsoft Office 365 is a suite of products and services that are hosted on, and accessed through, the internet rather than being installed on your premises or individual PC. A good example would be email - instead of maintaining an email server on site, Office 365 allows a company' email to be hosted online and all the staff's PCs and smartphones pick up email from there. The email is automatically backed up, always available and the individual business does not have to maintain an email server.

Lots of very tangible benefits, I'm sure you'll agree, and there are many more; it's flexible, scalable, good for cashflow as it is paid for by monthly subscription, secure and robust. But one particular aspect of Office 365 has been a major selling point to our clients, and at first glance it seems a very basic, simple thing - 'You mean we could share a calendar? Everyone in the office could see the same diary? Wow.'

With Office 365, everyone can still use Outlook as before to view email and manage their calendar. It's also very straightforward to allow them to see someone else's calendar. Or create a shared calendar for the general office. And to some businesses, that single aspect solves a mjor problem they might have had up until then. Perhaps no-one ever knows when the boss will be in or where they've gone. Perhaps a quick glance at the salesperson's calendar while they are out of contact on the road would allow someone back in the office to book an appointment with an important prospect, rather than miss the opportunity. Perhaps having a shared calendar between a team to note review dates would just make life a lot easier.

You see, we technologists can get all excited about the major aspects of a new technology and how it will revolutionise business, but sometimes it's the simplest things, the things that ultimately are actually of benefit to a business, that will cause the shift.

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Sometimes It's the Simple Things

Office 365 is available from £2.60 per user per month, with all-inclusive support from MonkeyPuzzle Computers for £5.00 per user per month. Call Phil on 01460 200 000 if you think you might benefit.