Microsoft offers cloud based Office 365

Microsoft may have been a bit slow to wake up to the threat that the Cloud and more importantly Google posed to their desktop based empire, but they are not holding back now. Microsoft has taken an “all-in” approach this year to Cloud being the future.

Office 365 is a re-branding of the previous Business Productivity Online Suite which offered businesses Exchange, SharePoint, Live Meeting, etc. for a low per user cost. The downside of Business Productivity Online Suite was the unlike Google Apps they had to have a full version of Microsoft Office to work with the Cloud offering. Now with Office 365 and the online office suite you can truly consider it a full Cloud based suite for businesses.

This is obviously a direct attack on the Google Apps suite, which itself is very powerful for Small and Medium businesses. While the Google Apps are still cheaper and even offer a free version, the Office 365 suite has some advantages.

For one you still have a lot of people out there in the work force that have been brought up using the Microsoft products. This will have some appeal to those people, even if it is a superficial reason.

Another advantage is the Live Meeting features. Although you can purchase third party apps for Google Apps like DimDim which can offer similar features, Live Meeting is already there and setup to run.

Google Apps still have several advantages over Office 365.

First and foremost price is going to be a huge consideration. Even considering you may have to get a few third party apps to compete with the full Office 365 suite. The fact that the full Google Apps suite is only $50 per user per year is amazingly cheap. Not to mention many small businesses can easily get away with the free version.

Google Apps are extremely easy to setup and understand. Like Gmail, it is just simple to use. There is not a huge learning curve to getting it up and going.

I do think the Office 365 is a solid choice and in many cases may be the better choice depending on the needs of the business. There are reasons for both and a place for both in business. Microsoft has got to get over the idea that people will buy it just because it is Microsoft. Be honest how many people even new about BPOS? Trust me not many!!

Which one is best for your business? It really depends on what your needs are. From what I have seen 60-70% of businesses would be fine with Google Apps.

For now you still have time to decide which is best for your business as ffice 365 is just about to enter a limited beta. The limited beta launch will take place among a few thousand companies in 13 countries and regions, with general availability expected in 2011.