Microsoft has been offering an online suite of services for several years under the banner of Microsoft Online Services, but more affectionately referred to as BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services). BPOS consists of a collection of online services that can be purchase separately or bundled together. Some of the services include: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online. In the IT industry, many have considered BPOS to be “Version 1” of Microsoft’s online offering.

Well, “Version 2” of Microsoft’s online services - Office 365 – is soon to be released. While the story behind the name has never been published, Office 365 likely refers to the fact that these services will be available for your business 24 x 7 x 365. Office 365 will not be free and is geared toward the commercial setting. Most notably, Microsoft is financially backing this service which means that they will actually reimburse customers - in cash - for an outage. They have been building high-tech, modern data centers around the world to support this new "cloud" world and they are guaranteeing a 99.9% uptime.

The Office name is being used since is it highly recognizable around the world but also because Microsoft will be offering new Web-based versions of their Office toolset (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and One Note). Most organizations focus on common tools to run their business - email for messaging, storage and sharing of documents, the interchange of ideas in a collaborative way on an intranet or something of the like, and a public or external website. Microsoft’s web-based versions of these popular tools will make managing IT easier in any organization.

Office 365 will provide you the following:

1. Exchange Online – This will act like the Exchange 2010 version of Outlook Web Access (now Outlook Web App). Every user in your organization will get a 25GB email inbox which can be accessed via their browser or via the traditional Microsoft Outlook client to manage emails. Exchange online also allow access to the devices you already use today such as Macs, Android, Windows Phones, and iPhones as well as all major web browsers.

2. Office Applications – In this space there are two options. In one case, the web-based version of the Microsoft Office Suite is available to use online via the browser (they work very nicely!). In the second case, Microsoft Office Professional Plus applications will be available to users to download the Office applications to their desktop or laptop as part of a subscription making the cost of the Office Suite more tolerable with their flexible, pay-as-you-go format.

3. SharePoint Online – Perhaps one of the most exciting features of Office 365, SharePoint will provide a hosted, nearly-full version of SharePoint 2010. Hosted means you don't need to purchase the hardware, you don't need to do the care and maintenance, and, best of all, you don't need to think about applying patches or upgrades! SharePoint Online will make it easy to share documents and insights with colleagues, partners, and customers.

4. Lync Online – Lync is the name for the newest, and more powerful, version of Office Live Messenger or Office Communication Services. This communication service connects people anytime, from virtually anywhere. Lync Online provides communications capabilities such as instant messaging, audio/video calling, and a rich online meeting experience with PC-audio, video, and web conferencing.

Office 365 will be offered in a number of different bundled feature sets or plans. The plans will be referred to as P1 or P2 for individuals and/or small business, and E1, E2, E3 or E4 for Enterprise Customers.  Pricing starts at about $6 per user, per month, with voice/phone services costs being about $27 per user, per month.

So why should you care about Office 365? Having access to these software products without any of the installation and support concerns that a small to medium sized business usually has is nearly unheard of. There are no upfront costs and you pay as you go. Microsoft Office 365 combines the familiar Office desktop suite with the latest, cloud-based versions of next-generation communications and collaboration services that work together seamlessly to provide the best productivity experience on PCs, phones, and browsers. Best of all, Office 365 is powered by the same Microsoft email and collaboration products that businesses have been using for decades.