Tag: office

Microsoft pushes back 365 price hikes

Posted on March 3, 2022 by - News

Microsoft has pushed back its plan to increase prices for 365.

The price hikes, which were first announced in August, officially come into effect today but Microsoft has announced a “transitional grace period” until 14 March.

The move is to fit into Vole’s cunning plan for its New Commerce Experience which is basically a licensing system for companies.

It means that new commerce transactions for the six commercial Modern Work SKUs – Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5 and Microsoft 365 E3 – can be invoiced at the February 2022 pricing.

All new commerce transactions for these six Modern Work SKUs submitted after 5 pm Pacific Daylight Time on 14 March will then be invoiced at the increased March price list pricing.

Pay-once-use-forever ain’t dead yet says Microsoft,

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - News

Software King of the World is dusting off an Office licence which you only need to pay for once.  This is much like the good old days, when you owned your own software and did not have to always pay for a subscription.

A new perpetual licence version for Office will be released in the second half of 2021, Microsoft announced on Tuesday at the Ignite 2020 virtual event.

While the company did not disclose the name of the product, it did reveal that the new version of Office will be available for Windows and Mac.

Vole said that the details regarding the official name, pricing and availability of the product will be revealed later — so be still your beating hearts.

Mobile office goes all wobbly

Posted on July 4, 2017 by - News

old_officeMicrosoft’s Office 365 portal encountered problems for a second consecutive working day.

The admin portal for Microsoft’s cloud productivity suite experienced a wobble on Friday, but later in the day Microsoft said it had fixed the bug.  But it turned out that it had not and yesterday it admitted that it was looking into reports of further problems. The problem affects user and admin accounts and is centred around admin portal availability.

Network admins took to Twitter to moan. Users in multiple European countries, including the UK, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and Lithuania, confirmed that they had experienced difficulties logging in this morning. Others complained that it was working, but was very slow.

Some users have been even daring to say that Microsoft’s O365 is not enterprise ready and that Vole should never had said it was all fixed on Friday.

The danger is that with each outage or service issue, more and more organisations are understanding the risks of entrusting email and application data to a single cloud ecosystem.

A Microsoft representative insisted that the issue was “short lived” and was resolved yesterday morning at a 11am.

Google targeting Office 365

Posted on April 27, 2016 by - News

google-ICGoogle is getting more agressive in its attempts to lure customers to Google Apps from Microsoft Office 365 after its initial programme was successful.

An incentive which allowed midsize businesses locked in contracts with other vendors to use Google Apps at no cost until those contracts expired was started in October and expired on April 14.

But Google has decided to maintain the incentive until the end of 2016, while also making it easier for smaller companies to qualify.

Writing in his bog, Neil Delaney, sales director for Google Apps said that the programme, which also helps fund migrations to Google’s cloud is doing rather well.

More than 20,000 midsize companies took advantage of the offer since October, launching 200,000 new Apps seats they wouldn’t have to pay for until licenses with other software vendors expired.

The original iteration of the programme applied to companies with between 250 and 3,000 employees. Delaney said Google fielded so much interest from smaller customers that it reduced the threshold to 100 employees for the extension period.

The programme aims to induce companies locked into an Enterprise Agreement (EA) to switch to Google Apps.  It gives new customers the opportunity to influence the move to Apps and gives decision makers the final incentive to make the switch.

Google wouldn’t name specific competitors from whom it sees the programme siphoning customers.  But it is pretty obviously talking about the sort of volume license offered by Microsoft for certain products, including Office 365.

 

Microsoft in big Office give away

Posted on January 29, 2015 by - News

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEOSoftware giant Microsoft has decided that people who use Android tablets will be able to download Office applications for nothing from today.
Office includes Excel, Word and Power Point.
Microsoft had already made versions of the software available for people with iPads.
But it has today also released a version of email client Outlook for Apple’s iPads and iPhones.
Microsoft realises that the market is slipping out of its reach and this is a gamble by CEO Satya Nadella to broaden the software offerings on mobile devices.
What it wants to do is to persuade people to upgrade to its fully blown Office 365 which costs about £5 a month if you sign up for it.
Microsoft also released a beta version of the Outlook app for people using the Android operating system.

 

Office warned over data hack

Posted on January 19, 2015 by - News

wargames-hackerThe Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has warned high street retailer Office after a hacker gained access to over a million customer records.
The ICO said the hacker accessed contact details by cracking open an unencrypted database that was due to be phased out.
The information went undetected and the ICO has had Office sign an undertaking to ensure problems associated with the hack are resolved.
In that undertaking, Office CEO Brian McCluskey said that the firm made no reference to retention of data and didn’t give formal data protection training.  Both these are now being addressed.
The ICO said that there was no suggestion that the breach went further and no bank details were stored.

 

Microsoft pushes Office for iPad

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News, Products

ipad3In either a sign of desperation or a sign of largesse, Microsoft said today it will let people using the Apple Pad make and edit documents for free instead of paying through the nose.

Microsoft wants its software to be pervasive across every gadget and gizmo as the world has opened up to applications that don’t need an expensive PC or a pricey Windows operating system to work.

Microsoft already started to offer Office for the iPad and is understood to have attracted some 10s of millions to the proposition.

And in a further move it wants Apple users on its side, it said it will release Powerpoint, Excel and Word apps not only for the iPhone but for the Android operating system later this year too.

Apps for mobile devices cost only pounds rather than hundreds of pounds but it’s not entirely clear what CEO Satya Nadella’s motives are in spreading the Word around.

IT buyers out of touch with office needs

Posted on June 11, 2013 by - News

Canon logoCanon has commissioned a study which found those making buying decisions in the office are often out of touch with the needs of the actual user.

Canon Europe surveyed 1,671 end users and decision makers. It found that firms all over Europe are having a hard time bringing in technology to enable flexible working – with a real minority making sure employees had smartphones or tablet PCs. BYOD, then, is crucial at the moment, as those with these devices find they are crucial to their jobs.

Most respondents said they need advice and support from their IT departments if they’re to properly reach their working potential, whether in the office or on the go. Just one quarter knew the office technology inside out, and the report highlights many workers feel they are excluded when it comes to picking technology they feel would be right for their companies.

Canon also found that, while the majority of respondents work with sensitive documents, they are being allowed onto insecure devices on insecure networks. Many end users believe that their organisation is managing document security – when that isn’t a case at all, with under five percent of IT buyers indicating that as a concern in printing, copying or scanning.

The company’s European and UK marketing manager, Matt Wrighton, said the gap between staff and decision makers is obvious. “It’s clear to see how the division within organisations between the two key parties, decision makers and employees, will, if not already, prove harmful to productivity in the workplace,” Wrighton said.

Portable gadgets shape home and office landscape

Posted on March 14, 2013 by - News

Apple iPadPortable gadgets are affecting consumer spending habits and lifestyles, research by Gartner has found.

The analyst company spoke to 8,000 consumers in the US, UK, Canada and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

It found that household adoption and spending on consumer technology products is shifting faster than expected in favour of gadgets and services that are portable or mobile and those that deliver networking capabilities and entertainment.

It said the major change is that mobility is now reshaping mainstream consumer behaviour in fundamental ways. Many of us, for example, now choose a smartphone or tablet in the lounge in favour of the office and the laptop, Gartner said.

It said service providers had to therefore wake up and begin “innovating” for this trend and mobility. “If they do nothing, they face a potential train wreck as consumers abandon gadgets, services and applications that do not fully support changing mobile lifestyles,” the company said.

And it seems the likes of tablets are taking over the household, with Gartner finding camera’s, e-readers and laptops had been replaced by tablets and similar devices in the household.