So you have gone out and bought the latest bright new shiny Office 365 package that includes Office 2013 for your business. You figure that one of the benefits of Office 365 is that you’ll be able to insure that all your machines will now have the same version of Office.
That is a GREAT idea but it over looks one VERY IMPORTANT point. Office 2013 requires Windows 7 or better to install. It WON’T install on Windows XP.
I am beginning to see so many people looking to Office 365 as a way to update their in house software which is fine and dandy provided they are still not running a 10+ year old operating system like Windows XP.
Sure, you may have saved some money by not upgrading to Windows Vista and 7 but guess what? To use the latest software you still have to make a jump to at least Windows 7 and that generally won’t be cheap.
So again, consider very carefully how long you elect to not upgrade the software that your business runs. The longer you wait, the further out of the supported window you become and when you have to upgrade you are going to need to jump a long way to catch up. That single jump generally is more expensive and disruptive than a number of smaller increments (but I’m sure some people will argue otherwise).
However, at the end of the day if you purchase Office 2013 in flavour make sure that all the machines you plan to install it on are running at least Windows 7.
More on Terminal Services and Office 365
*** Update 26 March 2013 *** Please read updated blog post on this:
https://blog.ciaops.com/2013/03/remote-desktop-services-in-office-365.html
A while back I wrote a post how Office 365 now allows Remote Desktop (Terminal Services) with the included Office version that comes with the plans. The gist of that post remains correct however what I have now determined is that not all Office 365 plans that include Office 2013 as part of their plan are entitled to be used in a remote environment.
The following table is from the Service Description for Office Pro Plus with Office 365 – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj819251.aspx
Here you can see that Office 2013 is only licensed for Remote Desktop Services (RDP) with the stand alone Office Pro Plus, E3 and E4 plans. It is not available (according to this) for the Office 365 Small Business Premium or Midsize Business.
However, there is still a little bit of confusion around the entitlement for the Midsize Business Plan because the Produce Use Rights (P82) at:
http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/DocumentSearch.aspx?Mode=3&DocumentTypeId=1
indicates that the Midsize plan does have Remote Desktop Rights.
I expect that this confusion will be cleared up shortly and when I hear more I’ll post it here so stay tuned.
Best posts from March
Here are some post I think worth revisiting that I penned in the month of March in years gone by.
2012
Search Server Express on SBS 2011 – Gotcha’s and the release of my eBook on the subject.
Marketing to my mind – Some thoughts on basic marketing
2011
Another health warning – We all need to spend more time doing something about our health.
Getting Started With Companyweb 2010 – Some information and the release of my eBook on the topic.
2010
Cloud security – my thoughts on why the hysteria doesn’t match the reality.
I’m not the only one – The changing reseller landscape.
2009
Media hysteria – No wonder people are afraid of computers and the Internet.
Kakrafoon – Is Twitter something Douglas Adam foresaw?
2008
The Vista debacle – Interesting given the current debate over the slow adoption of Windows 8.
Re-thinking managed services – Thinking on the changing face of technology businesses.
SkyDrive Pro desktop sync is part of Office 2013 Pro Plus
*** 22 May 2013 Update ***
SkyDrive Pro Windows client app is now available for free. See post:
https://blog.ciaops.com/2013/05/skydrive-pro-client-now-available-for.html
For details
***************
As more people start to use the new features of SharePoint Online from Office 365 I am seeing greater confusion around how to synchronize files from SkyDrive Pro to the desktop. If you haven’t already I suggest you have a look at my previous posts about SkyDrive Pro:
There is also a SkyDrive Pro video I did:
SkyDrive Pro Webinar – Preview
and of course there is a eBook I recent released:
Getting started with SkyDrive Pro
The synchronization of files from SharePoint Online 2013 to a Windows desktop can be achieved by what I call a SkyDrive Pro App. This is a small program that once installed, monitors for changes between the local Windows machine and SharePoint 2013. When it finds changes it does a sync.
What seems to be confusing many people is where you get this SkyDrive Pro app. At the moment this app is only part of Office 2013 Professional Plus as you can see from below:
So if you don’t have Office 2013 Professional Plus you won’t get the SkyDrive Pro app and you won’t be able to perform synchronization to your local desktop.
As you can appreciate this is a major limitation for people using the new SharePoint Online. Much like the consumer version of SkyDrive they should have made this SkyDrive Pro app available for free so that you didn’t need Office 2013 Professional Plus to get it. There are however rumours that the SkyDrive Pro app will soon be available for free and I certainly hope this is the case for otherwise it is going to stymie the uptake of SharePoint Online, especially for those not currently having Office 2013 Professional Plus.
Office 365 vs Google Apps webcast
I’ve just participated in a Google Hangout with Richard Tubb, Owen Kane and James Kimberly discussing the merits of cloud solutions like Google Apps and Office 365.
The inspiration for this chat came about after Richard Tubb moved from Office 365 and particularly Outlook, to Google Apps. There he found additional functionality with a number of productivity plugins. This move garnered some strong reactions on Google Plus which tended to focus on the technology. Hopefully, this webcast proves that it is the information that is important to the customer. So if you are expecting fireworks then you’ll probably have to wait till we no another webcast.
Have a look and let me know what you think and how we can improve this. Also if you have some topics you’d like to see discussed then by all means send them along to me at director@ciaops.com.
Many outsourcers will disappear
Have been reading from some interesting research on infrastructure outsourcing (IO) (Managed Service Providers, MSPs, if you like) from Gartner. They are predicting a market consolidation of up to 20% but here some other interesting snippets:
“Gianluca Tramacere, research vice president at Gartner, said traditional IO providers are at serious risk of extinction.”
“In the past decade many outsourcers have procrastinated, failing to make the changes needed to transform challenges into opportunities. Many will disappear- some slowly, some rapidly.”
“Traditional infrastructure outsourcers can no longer survive in their current state. The market won’t allow it and customers are demanding much more.”
The report also has the following to say about small providers:
Small Managed service providers
The most immediate implication is for small outsourcing and managed services providers. The value-add they provide is eroded significantly when compared with cloud services. As larger organizations providing cloud-based solutions attract more small business customers, small IT shops will lose customers, margin and traditional service opportunities.
This is also an opportunity for those service providers that are agile enough to transform themselves into cloud partners. What I mean by this is that there are opportunities to help small businesses take advantage of cloud services and save money either through migration services or cloud service reselling. The sales pitch is easy but the margins are low. In order to have a viable business model, volume is key. This means that the small managed service provider will need to grow their customer base significantly to maintain sustainability.
So what does this mean for the IT pro at a small outsourcing shop? I would expect that there will be far less hands on technical work and much more menial administration across many more customers. There will also be an increase in network architecture and management requirements as connectivity to the cloud will increase in important compared to local connectivity.
This again simply reinforces what I have been writing about for a long while here. Just one example:
https://blog.ciaops.com/2012/04/valley-of-discontent.html
The Internet will force change on every business but only some will survive.
Adjusting license components in Office 365
Assigning a license to a user is pretty straight forward in Office 365, however if you ever need to change a license be careful of the following.
When you view a users licenses you will see something like the above. Now let’s say that you want to reassign an Exchange license so you uncheck the option like so:
Now, if you press the save button without assigning another Exchange license you’ll see the following:
If you proceed all the users Lync contacts will be removed but what about the mailbox?
From what I have been able to see is that if you do indeed make a mistake and fail to assign an Exchange license you can go back in and assign an Exchange mailbox to that user and all their mail will still be there. Now I can’t say for sure how long that will happen for but judging be the above message you would think 30 days, however I don’t I’d be willing to leave it that long.
So the moral here is, if you are adjusting Office 365 licenses between plan make sure you have assigned a license for everything that user required BEFORE proceeding and saving changes. If you don’t you run this risk of losing their data, however from the testing I have done it seems that if you correct your mistake quickly enough you should be ok.
Best advice is always to check before proceeding.
Office 365 Small Business Plans now have https
I was noodling away with a recently set up Office 365 Small Business Premium (P2) plan when I notice the following on the default team site:
In the previous version of the P Plan all the SharePoint sites (internal and external) were http like so:
I haven’t as yet tested all the new plans but I would have to assume that all new Office 365 internal SharePoint sites now run using https! (if not leave a comment on this post so I can check).
Yet another improvement over the old version.
CIAOPS 