Information about SharePoint, Microsoft 365, Azure, Mobility and Productivity from the Computer Information Agency
Here’s an email that Office 365 users in Australia recently received in conjunction with the outage that was experienced in April.
Nothing is perfect and Office 365 is still in its infancy but I for one am heartened to see that the right thing has been done and customers affected have been duly compensated (as Microsoft provides a financial guarantee on its service level agreement). It would have been nice for this to have come out earlier but hopefully it will not need to again.
A little while back I wrote an article about using an iPad with Office 365 in which I lamented at how the iPad works fine as a reading device with Office Web Apps but struggles when it comes to editing.
My hope with the updated release by Apple of iOS 5 that things would get better, unfortunately they haven’t.
Here is what happens when I attempt to edit a Word document using Office Web Apps on an iPad 2 running iOS 5, the document cannot be opened for editing.
We get a similar result when attempting the same thing with Excel Web Apps.
Damm! Is all I can say. I know that Office Web Apps work well in most other browsers on most other platforms, yet here, no go. It is a real pity as an iPad is such a sweet device and would work well for remote users.
So as it stands an iPad works really well as a SharePoint reading device and for working with SharePoint data. Where it falls down is when you actually want to edit Microsoft Office documents (whether in the browser or offline). Hopefully, both Apple and Microsoft can work a little closer together to make this functionality complete but whether that will happen is anyone’s guess.
The next in a series of blog posts on the differences between the plan offerings in Office 365.
Product
1 – Lync
2 – SharePoint
3 – Exchange
4 – Enterprise Suites
5 – Small Business Suite
6 – Office Web Apps
7 – Office 2010 Professional Plus
8 – Kiosk Suites
Things are not so straight forward now with SharePoint and the different plans because you can purchase SharePoint Online as an individual SKU (Plan 1 or Plan 2, shown below).
|
SharePoint Online(Plan 1) |
SharePoint Online (Plan 2) |
|
|
Team sites |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Simple public facing web site |
1 |
1 |
|
Ribbon Site designer tool |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SharePoint Designer 2010 |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
|
Custom workflows |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Sandbox solutions |
Yes |
Yes |
|
My Site |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Enterprise features (Forms Services, Excel Services, Visio Services) |
No |
Yes |
|
Access Services |
No |
Yes |
|
Business Connectivity Services |
No |
No |
|
Site collections |
Up to 300 |
Up to 300 |
|
Search (across site collections) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Extranet users |
50 free |
50 free |
|
Storage |
10GB + 500MB per USL |
10GB + 500MB per USL |
|
Buy additional storage |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Administration |
Yes, Tenant level |
Yes Tenant Level |
or as part of a suite as shown below.
|
For Small Businesses SharePoint Online in P1 |
For Kiosk Workers SharePoint Online in K1/K2 |
For Information Workers SharePoint Online Plan 1 in E1/E2 |
For Information Workers SharePoint Online Plan 2 in E3/E4 |
|
|
Team Sites |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Simple Public-Facing Website |
1 Basic Public-facing site included |
No |
1 Basic Public-facing site included |
1 Basic Public-facing site included |
|
Site Designer |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SharePoint Designer 2010 |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
Yes, for Intranet sites |
|
Custom Workflows |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Sandbox Solutions (PTC) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
My Site |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Enterprise Features (Forms Services, Excel Services, Visio Services) |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Access Services |
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
|
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Site Collections |
Single Site Collection |
N/A |
Up to 300 |
Up to 300 |
|
Office Web Apps |
View & Edit |
View only for K1 View and Edit for K2 |
View only for E1 View and Edit for E2 |
View & Edit |
|
|
|
|||
|
Search (across Site Collections) |
N/A |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Basic External Document Sharing |
Yes |
N/A |
Yes, add-on |
Yes, add-on |
|
Storage |
10GB + 500MB per USL |
10GB + 0MB per USL |
10GB + 500MB per USL |
10GB + 500MB per USL |
|
Buy additional storage |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Max Org Users |
Up to 50 |
TBD |
TBD |
TBD |
|
Admin |
Single Site Collection |
No |
Yes Tenant level |
Yes Tenant level |
|
Support |
Community* |
24×7 phone support for Admin |
24×7 phone support for Admin |
24×7 phone support for Admin |
There are come inconsistencies to note here with SharePoint plans:
– The Small Business and Professional suite includes most of the features SharePoint Plan P1 but also includes the single enterprise feature of Access Services.
– The Small Business and Professional suite is limited to a total of 2 site collections, one public and one intranet.
– The Small Business and Professional suite does not allow you to purchase additional storage beyond what is provided initially (10GB) plus the amount per user (500GB).
– The Small Business and Professional suite includes the ability to read and write using Office Web Apps.
– In Australia 24×7 phone support is provided with the Small Business and Professional suite via Telstra, elsewhere it is only community support.
– Intranet SharePoint sites use https (secure) while public facing web sites only use http. However the Small Business and Professional plan only allows http for all web sites (see link for details).
– Intranet SharePoint domains are of the form https://.sharepoint.com.
– External SharePoint support vanity domains i.e. http://www.domain.com.
Another point to consider is that Business Connectivity services has been announced for an update to Office 365 coming in November. I am unsure whether at this stage it will be available in the P plan.
I’m going to do a series of blog posts on the differences between the plan offerings in Office 365. I’ll update all the previous posts as I complete future articles. The first one will be on the differences in the Lync Plans
Product
1 – Lync
2 – SharePoint
3 – Exchange
4 – Enterprise Suites
5 – Small Business Suite
6 – Office Web Apps
7 – Office 2010 Professional Plus
8 – Kiosk Suites
|
Feature |
Lync Online |
Lync Online |
|
Instant messaging (IM) and presence |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Lync-to-Lync audio/video calling (1-to-1) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Lync federation (IM/presence/audio/video) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Click-to-communicate in Office |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Authenticated attendee in Lync meetings* |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync® |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Online Meetings |
No |
Yes (up to 250 attendees) |
|
Initiate ad-hoc and scheduled online meetings |
No |
Yes |
|
Initiate multiparty (3 or more users) Lync audio/video sessions |
No |
Yes |
|
Initiate interactive data sharing (screen/application/whiteboard) |
No |
Yes |
|
Interop with third-party dial-in audio conferencing services |
No |
Yes |
|
Rights to Lync Server CALs |
Lync Standard CAL |
Lync Enterprise CAL |
|
Price (A$/user/month) |
A$3.20/user/month |
A$10.20/user/month |
* Enterprise Suite E1 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E2 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E3 includes Lync Plan 2
* Enterprise Suite E4 includes Lync Plan 2
* Small Business Suite includes Lync Plan 2
http://www.ciaops.com/office-365-seminar/
This is opportunity for you to learn about these latest ‘cloud’ technologies and how they can integrate in your business. If you have been considering moving to ‘cloud’ technologies this course will give you valuable hands on information about how these technologies work. if you are already using Office 365 and Windows InTune you’ll benefit from learning how to make these applications work better and more productively as well as learning advance features and time saving tips and tricks.
The cost for this full day is only $ 299 ex GST and includes all meals and course material. If you are interested in learning about the benefits ‘cloud’ technologies can provide you or you want to get more from Office 365 and Windows InTune then you should sign up for this course. Places are limited so don’t delay.
Final day of the conference and the information still keeps coming. The first session of the day started off with a look into Access Services and how to develop solutions that will run on Office 365. It is really impressive to see how easily you can move applications from Access to the cloud.
The great part about this for smaller businesses is that Access Services comes with the P license (which I don’t generally recommend) and the E3 license. It demonstrates how much additional functionality a small business can get if they move to Office 365 as trying to implement the same functionality on site is simply too expensive.
Next up was another fantastic presentation on Excel services and what can be achieved here. I was amazed at how little effort is required to get a really powerful dashboard that includes pivot tables, slices, interactive graphs and more. The presenter even showed some of functionality of Excel from Skydrive including how to embed Excel spreadsheets on just about any web page. Really, really impressive stuff that inspired me to return and implement something similar.
Although it was a significant cost to attend and although the majority of the content at the conference was focused on the enterprise I’m glad that I attended. There is just so much around this product as I have said before. There is simply so much opportunity, even in the SMB space., even more so going forward with the move to Office 365.
Perhaps the most exciting thing is what Microsoft have planned to bring to Office 365 in the future and all of that will be available to all subscribers, big and small. Now I need to start reviewing al the other sessions I wasn’t able to attend but are available on the conference we site. Certainly can’t complain about the ongoing value of this conference. I’m sure it’ll keep me busy for at least another 12 months.
Phew, it’s been a hectic 2 days full of SharePoint goodness. Most of the content is aimed at enterprise types but is becoming more relevant with Office 365 (which provides enterprise SharePoint in the cloud).
I also finally managed to spend some time with all the vendors who are also here and must say that I found plenty of opportunities. Again, most are focused on the enterprise with enterprise level pricing but there are also a few option here that would suite SMB. I’ll need to spend some time digesting all this information before I post my findings.
After Day 2 we also had the opportunity to attend Disneyland (which closed off for everyone except the SharePoint conference attendees). Most of the rides were open, there was free food and drink which everyone took advantage of. It was a good time.
While I am here I also took the opportunity to sit the Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Configuring (70-667) exam. I am also please to report that I passed the exam and now have a SharePoint 2010 competency under my belt.
The event has been jammed packed with information and I realize now how much more there is to SharePoint and what an opportunity it presents. From configuring, to administering, implementation and development, there is just so much to this product.
Tomorrow is the final half day of the conference and then it’ll be over for another year. They have announced the one next year will be in Las Vegas in November. Roll on 2012!
If you want an idea of just how BIG this conference is check out the dining hall or the keynote address attendance.
There are over 7,500 attendees here for 4 days of SharePoint.
The day started early with breakfast followed by the keynote. No major reveals but some nice additions coming along the track.
From there it was into a number of sessions including information about SharePoint Online, Business Intelligence Dashboards and improved productivity. All extremely worthwhile.
An even bigger day tomorrow with a full day of session followed by a party in Disneyland. Obviously Mickey must be a big SharePoint user to throw open his park (free) to all attendees!
CIAOPS 