Cloud computing is one of the major technological buzzwords of the mid-2010s, and one that is certainly accompanied by no shortage of hype. Cloud usage is often claimed to improve every aspect of technology and computing, with hundreds of firms lining up to declare that they have truly figured out how to leverage this type of computing. Instead of dealing only with empty claims, though, it is better to examine what this type of computing has actually done for the business world. A quick look at what cloud computing is and what it can accomplish may allow you to separate reality from the fiction surrounding cloud computing. To learn more, checkout this infographic created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online MBA in Information Systems program.
Google Plus —currently has 500+ million active users and is gaining 625,000 users per day. The Google “+” button is served more than 5 billion times per day and the audience is 67% male and 33% female.
Customers are increasingly trading in their old, bloated, expensive on-premises email archives for cloud services. Over time, these last-century technologies will take their place in the history of computing – the world, technology and the needs of customers have simply moved on.
Old, bloated and expensive on-premises email archives are being swapped for cloud services.
Early adopters of email archiving have been staring angrily at their on-premises vault and watching it grow since the end of the last century. As wholly on-premises installations, these solutions were designed to alleviate the long-term email storage problems associated with Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and their rampant PST generation habits. IT departments quickly found that storing email on the primary mail server and stubbing it back to end users’ in-boxes meant their Exchange environment was more stable and efficient.
About 20 years ago, when the concept of an email archive first emerged, IT professionals couldn’t predict what an email archive of the future would look like. They certainly had no idea how large an email infrastructure could get. As users continue to send and receive massive amounts of email, and as attachment sizes continue to grow, old vaults have reached their storage capacity and as a result, demand more new hardware to manage the overflow of data.
The scalability of on-premises archives has been doomed from the beginning, as its growth is at the mercy of allotted IT budgets. IT teams have run out of patience trying to support this now vintage solution.
Then there’s the actual effectiveness, utility and usefulness of on-premises vaults. Historically, email archiving has been the domain of the IT administrator, and in some instances, legal counsel or compliance teams. Generally, the vault would have been deployed to solve either a storage management problem on Exchange, or a compliance and e-discovery problem affecting the business. Neither of these scenarios has any direct benefit for employees whose email is being stored after all – and it is these people who are demanding more of these solutions in today’s corporate environments.
Microsoft is busy working on Windows 10, while also working the next phase of Microsoft Office.
The company recently unveiled new Microsoft Office touch apps, and it said a new version of its desktop suite was also in development. While all that sounds great, many have wondered how that affects Office 365. Well, to be frank, Office 365 isn't actually a different suite of Office apps but rather a brand name for a group of products with service subscriptions.
Confusing, we know. So, in an attempt to simplify things, and to help you decide which version of Office is best for you, including whether you even need an Office 365 subscription, we've explained everything you need to know.
What is Office 365?
When Microsoft unleashed Office 2013 (the successor to Office 2010) two years ago, it actually launched 12 different editions of the productivity suite, including traditional editions (such as "Home & Student" and "Home & Business") as well as new subscription-based editions available through its Office 365 program.
Microsoft's Office 365 program – at the time – allowed use of all the Office 2013apps, other Microsoft services, and value-added services (such as 20 GB of SkyDrive storage and 60 Skype minutes per month), but you had to buy a 365 subscription plan in order to use any of those apps and services. The plans were initially aimed at home users.
In October 2014, Microsoft introduced new Office 365 plans. The company said it re-designed the plan setup to better meet the needs of business users. The new plans are called Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business, and Office 365Business Premium. They are geared toward a range of different business sizes (small, medium, large, etc).
Moving on to the present…Microsoft's Office 365 program currently offers the following subscription-based plans: Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365Business, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Home, and Office 365 Personal. Each plan has a different price point and set of features, but we're just going to focus on Home and Personal.
Microsoft's Office 365 Home plan costs $9.99 per month (or $99 per year) and is compatible with Windows 7 or later and Mac OS X 10.6. The plan allows up to five users, meaning you'll get a copy of the Office desktop apps for just five PCs and Macs, the Office experience for up to five tablets and five phones, etc. Check out the full list of features below.
Full, installed Office 2013 desktop apps for up to 5 PCs and Macs*
Full Office experience for up to 5 tablets and 5 phones
Offline storage
OneDrive online storage up to 1TB for 5 users each
Skype (calls to mobile phones) – 60 minutes per month for up to 5 users each
Learn more about all the Office 365 plans and featureshere
Office 365 Personal
Microsoft's Office 365 Personal plan costs $6.99 per month (or $69 per year) and is compatible with Windows 7 or later and Mac OS X 10.6. The plan only allows up to one user, meaning you'll get a copy of the Office desktop apps for just one PC or Mac, the Office experience for one tablet and one phones, etc. Check out the full list of features below.
Full, installed Office 2013 desktop apps for just 1 PC or Mac
Full, installed Office experience for just 1 tablet and 1 phone
Offline storage
OneDrive online storage up to 1TB for just 1 users
Skype (calls to mobile phones) – 60 minutes per month for just 1 user
Learn more about all the Office 365 plans and features
Read complete article at Pocketlint http://bit.ly/1GXmeK7
Check out our Office touch apps round-upfor more. Microsoft also published the following video demonstration of the Office touch apps on a small tablet:
Do you have fragmented data storage? Understand the risks. Find a solution..
This independent report from Freeform Dynamics offers a detailed analysis of the state of corporate data storage. It paints a worrying picture of fragmented storage, security risks, compromised decision-making and flawed protection policies.
But it’s not all bad news.
The report also identifies the solution that nearly three quarters of those surveyed will turn to as they seek to regain control, cut costs and ensure corporate data is put to work as a business enabler.
Find out how your data storage strategy compares:
Are you really in control of data storage?
Is your corporate data at risk?
Are your costs out of control?
Is there a better way?
Get your answers now. Read the report
G4Cloud's partnership with Mimecast can help you control your data and make it work to your advantage. Read the report and find out the state of your corporate data storage.
G4CloudAssist our professional services organisation is established to meet future demand for high quality technical cloud skills from Enterprises and Organisations on their journey to the Public Cloud.
G4CloudAssist has created a support structure and method to develop and maintain a Public Cloud Solution.
The methodology represents a Cloud roadmap presenting different stages, like: Assessment/Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) study, Proof of Concept (PoC) and Development, Leverage/Optimize and Maintenance/Managed Service.
From Good to the Great – WhyOffice365Needs Mimecast
Office365 is positioned by Microsoft as a one-stop-shop, and on the surface looks like something of a panacea for a business looking to outsource email and stop managing an on-premises Exchange server. For many businesses, particularly in the SMB space, it is.
But for larger companies, or those for whom email is a mission critical application, Office365 may not be quite so alluring. In general, Mimecastcustomers fall into that category – they want to use best practice cloud services to protect email from threats, and store the data in a secure, highly available archive. And amongst our customer base we’ve seen a preference for keeping Exchange on-site – there’s strong interest in Exchange 13 – or moving to a hybrid model with some mailboxes on-site and others in the cloud.
The blockers to Office365 adoption seem to fall into three categories.
– Archiving doesn’t offer sufficient levels of compliance and
eDiscovery capabilities
– Uptime is a concern
– Exchange Online Protection may not represent best
practice email security
We also think a further need will emerge, for a single archive of multiple types of unstructured data, fully searchable both for eDiscovery purposes and for day to day use by end users from their laptops, smart-phones and tablets. An Enterprise Information Archive for Office 365, to use Gartner terminology. Watch video below. The complete article can be readhere.
