TMCnews Featured Article

You know in the Brady Bunch when extremely self-involved Marcia Brady truly believed the world revolved around her and would yell, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia?” That is how those in the technology world feel these days, except the saying sounds a little more like “cloud, cloud, cloud.” As cloud-based solutions increase in popularity, one offering in particular is seeing a high level of adoption and that bad boy would be Office 365.

SMBs or small to medium-sized businesses in particular who oftentimes have extremely strict budgets they must adhere to, are now realizing the large value the cloud and cloud-based solutions like Office 365 can bring to overall operations including increased collaboration and communication amongst geographically separated divisions of the company, reduced costs and the ability to access vital documents from anywhere with a reliable Internet connection and at any time. According to recent findings found in the 2012 AT&T (News - Alert) Small Business Tech Poll, nearly half of small businesses will be enabling their employees to leverage wireless technology in order to ramp up productivity while on-the-go.

"Customers are choosing Microsoft (News - Alert) productivity solutions because they deliver a more complete experience and greater flexibility to move to the cloud on the customer's terms," said Eddie O'Brien, vice president, Operator Channels, Microsoft, in a statement. "With AT&T's wealth of experience working with small businesses, customers using Office 365 will have an always up-to-date service that delivers enhanced features and new capabilities as soon as they are available."

With Microsoft Office 365 from AT&T in place, users can gain access to e-mail and calendar sharing with Microsoft Exchange; key tools like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint; instant messaging via Microsoft Lync, PC-to-PC calling, and integrated presence; Web conferencing and HD video conferencing; and file sharing and document management capabilities.

Tony Rizzo (News - Alert), senior editor, Mobility at TMCnet added, “If you know Microsoft Office for business then you know Microsoft Office 365, otherwise also known as Microsoft’s answer to Google (News - Alert) Docs and other cloud-based collaboration and productivity suites. For most SMBs the greatest issue in moving to Office 365 is getting the setup and activation done – most SMBs need to focus on their businesses and have very little time to get lost in the many weeds that can spring up in doing so. It’s good to note that AT&T will offer SMBs its AT&T TechSupport 360 service; this will prove to be of enormous help to SMBs in quickly becoming operational in the cloud.”

With flexible plans beginning at only $6 a month per user from the telecommunications provider, the platform will be prove extremely valuable to smaller organizations that can now portray a much bigger image.

In related Office 365 news, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner SherWeb works closely with companies throughout every industry to enable them to meet an array of collaboration needs via the company’s SkyOffice platform. Touted as a lot more than just a set of features, SkyOffice offers easy migration, 24/7 life support and unparalleled level of flexibility.

To find out how SkyOffice from SherWeb seamlessly integrates first-class technology with a human touch, click here.