SkyDrive Pro increased storage and ease of sharing

SkyDrive Pro is cloud storage for business and a part of the Office365 suite of services. It’s the place where employees can store, sync, and share their files across multiple devices with ease and security. With SkyDrive Pro you can collaborate with others in real time and edit documents from virtually anywhere via a web browser using Office Web Apps. Accessing your files from multiple devices (including Windows Phone, Windows 8, iOS, and Android devices) is a cinch with native SkyDrive Pro and Office Mobile apps. Not only does SkyDrive Pro deliver the frictionless user experiences that employees expect in a file sync solution, it’s backed by a platform that provides industrial-strength content management, compliance, and content management controls.

 

Microsoft is continually improving the SkyDrive Pro service. The new SkyDrive Pro apps are now available in the Window Store and App Store.  Recently Microsoft announced three new significant improvements to SkyDrive Pro for Office 365 business subscribers – to help you be more productive:

• Each user now gets 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage space (up from 7 GB).
• You can now increase users’ SkyDrive Pro storage beyond the default 25 GB-up to 50 GB and 100 GB.
• With the new Shared with Me view,you can easily find documents others have shared with you.

Each user now gets 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage space (up from 7 GB).

Office 365 technology – SkyDrive Pro increases storage and ease of sharing

SkyDrive Pro is cloud storage for business. It’s the place where employees can store, sync, and share their files across multiple devices with ease and security. With SkyDrive Pro you can collaborate with others in real time and edit documents from virtually anywhere via a web browser using Office Web Apps. Accessing your files from multiple devices (including Windows Phone, Windows 8, iOS, and Android devices) is a cinch with native SkyDrive Pro and Office Mobile apps. Not only does SkyDrive Pro deliver the frictionless user experiences that employees expect in a file sync solution, it’s backed by a platform that provides industrial-strength content management, compliance, and content management controls.

Microsoft is  continually improving the SkyDrive Pro service. The new SkyDrive Pro apps are now available in the Window Store and App Store. Recently they  announced three new significant improvements to SkyDrive Pro for Office 365 business subscribers – to help you be more productive:

• Each user now gets 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage space (up from 7 GB).
• You can now increase users’ SkyDrive Pro storage beyond the default 25 GB-up to 50 GB and 100 GB.
• With the new Shared with Me view,you can easily find documents others have shared with you.

 

Office News – Office 365 subscribers get Office Mobile for Android phones

Last November, Microsoft  delivered a brand new version of Office Mobile, preinstalled on all Windows Phone 8 devices. In June, Microsoft released Office Mobile for iPhone as a unique benefit for Office 365 subscribers.

Rcently Microsoft   launched Office Mobile for Android phones in the United States at no additional charge for Office 365 subscribers. This means that Office 365 subscribers can now work on their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents from virtually anywhere–using their Windows Phone, iPhone or Android phones.¹

Office Mobile for Android phones can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. To use the app, you need a qualifying Office 365 subscription, including Office 365 Home Premium or Office 365 ProPlus (you can find the complete list of qualifying subscriptions here). Office Mobile for Android phones is initially available in the United States, with more countries coming on board over the next several weeks.

So what’s great about Office Mobile for Android phones?

A true Office experience

Office Mobile is the official companion to Microsoft Office. Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents look great on your phone, thanks to support for charts, animations, SmartArt Graphics, and shapes. When you make edits or add comments to a document, the formatting and layout remain intact. When you return to your PC or Mac, your document looks like it should.

Easy access

Office Mobile is designed for people on the go.  We made it easy to access your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in the cloud on SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro.  When you’re on your phone, you’ll see the list of documents you recently opened on your computer in the Recent Documents panel–no searching needed. And of course, you can view and edit documents you receive in email.

Designed for the phone

Office Mobile has been optimized for the small screen of your phone so you can get things done efficiently.  When reviewing Word documents, the Resume Reading feature takes you to the exact point in the document where you left off on your PC so you don’t waste time searching. The new Slide Navigator lets you browse through PowerPoint presentations fast while Speaker Notes help you practice on the run.

Sharing built-in

Edit documents and share them right from your phone. You can review comments in Word and Excel documents on your phone and add your own.  When you’re done, you can save the file back to SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro or just send it as an email attachment.

Go ahead and download Office Mobile from the Google Play store.

If you want to try Office Mobile for Android phones, but don’t have an Office 365 subscription, you can sign up for a free 30 day Office 365 trial at http://www.office.com/. And of course, if you’re already using a Windows Phone, then Office Mobile is already installed on your phone.

Want to learn more? You can find more details in the Office 365 Tech blog.

–Julia White

 

Surface RT + Outlook 2013 RT … + More? | Windows RT content from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows

Surface RT + Outlook 2013 RT … + More? | Windows RT content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows.

Office 365 + Windows 8.1 Preview | Office 365 content from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows

Office 365 + Windows 8.1 Preview | Office 365 content from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows.

Office 365 business customers who install the Windows 8.1 Preview on their Windows 8 or Windows RT devices will have a mostly seamless experience. But there is at least one gotcha you need to be aware of.

First, here’s what works with no effort at all: Virtually everything. And that’s true for both users and those who administer Office 365 for others.

For admins, this means that all of the Office 365 admin web site interfaces look and work as expected in Internet Explorer 11, which is new to the Windows 8.1 Preview. And this is true for both the “Modern” (a.k.a. “Metro”) version of IE 11 and the desktop version.

Review: Office 365 turns up the heat

Microsoft has clearly worked hard to make Office 365 an easier way to run a full network for small and medium-sized businesses. The new edition is easier to set up, easier to administer, easier to use, and more flexible. It’s friendlier to mobile devices, though there’s still plenty of room for improvement. And it’s all around more capable, drawing on nice additions in Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, as well as better integration across the servers.

The ability to switch on mail, file sharing, Web/intranet, messaging, and live meetings without standing up servers and SANs will be enticing to companies eager to save time and money. But companies who think implementing Office 365 will eliminate the need for IT staff (and IT pros who think it will mean more hours in the day for World of Warcraft) are going to be disappointed. Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync may be running in Microsoft’s cloud, but they still require attention from knowledgeable hands.   InfoWorld.

Microsoft raises Office for Mac 2011 prices, pushes customers toward Office 365

 

 

Three weeks after Microsoft released Office 365 Home Premium, a subscription-based service that gives Macs, PCs and Windows tablets access to the complete set of Office applications, it was discovered that the Redmond company quietly upped the price of single use Office for Mac copies by as much as 17 percent.

First spotted by Computerworld, the new pricing structure puts the outdated Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 in the same tier as its newer PC counterpart, Office 2013 for Windows. Also deprecated from the Mac version are multi-license bundles, meaning those interested in purchasing can now only install the software on one device at a time.

The publication proposes that the change was designed to spur sales of Microsoft’s newest Office 365 suite, the “Home Premium” version of which includes a complete set of Office applications that can be installed on up to five Macs, PCs, and Windows tablets. To access the cloud-based solution, users pay a yearly subscription of $99.99. Student pricing comes in at a substantially cheaper $79.99 for a four-year subscription to Office 365 University.

Microsoft now charges $140 for the single-license Office for Mac Home & Student and $220 for Office for Mac Home & Business, a respective 17 percent and 10 percent price hike from the previous $120 and $200 price points.

As for the now-extinct multi-license packages, the company once offered a three-license bundle of Office for Mac Home & Student for $150 and a two-license set of Office for Mac Home & Business for $250. Using the new pricing scheme, it would cost $420 to buy three separate licenses of Home & Student and $440 for two Home & Business licenses, representing 180 percent and 76 percent increases from the erstwhile bundles, respectively.

While Microsoft and Apple’s respective online stores now reflect the higher prices, Office for Mac 2011 can still be found at the older pricing in both single- and multi-license versions from online retailers like Amazon.