Weekly #WhyMSFT Round-Up 7/8/2011

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Each week, we round up industry news and articles that you might have missed. Enjoy this week’s selections.

The Microsoft Advantage

Microsoft Adds Co-Authoring Feature to Word Web App
"When you're co-authoring, you always have a real time view into who is making changes and where these changes are occurring. As soon as you begin typing, the corresponding section of the document is locked and others are notified, placing you in control and freeing others from distraction.."... Just share out a document from the SkyDrive and you, and anyone the file is shared with can work on it simultaneously.

Facebook Teams with Skype, Microsoft to Slay Google
"The video calling is so great and it's so easy," said Zuckerberg. "Your least-technical friend is going to be able to get online with video chat and get connected. You'll connect with your friends on the social network that already has all your friends."

Microsoft Will Make Out Thanks to Facebook Skype Deal
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted today that while the site had been in talks with Skype for quite some time, news of its acquisition by Microsoft was a deal maker. 

Office 365 Launch News

Office 365
“…to suggest that Office 365 is an answer to Google Apps is to imply that Google's services are somehow in a league with Office 365. Office 365 is far more than simply a Web version of Office 2010. Office 365 is a service comprised of cloud-based versions of Microsoft's four front-running business products. Of course, that does include Microsoft Office. But it also bundles in Exchange (the widely-used email platform), SharePoint (a platform for document sharing and collaboration) and Lync (a service that provides IM, video conferencing, PC phone calling and some enterprise social networking) all delivered through an interface that will make IT admins happy, thanks to the granular level of control that can be imposed on a business, regardless of size.”

Office 365: Car Dealer Revs Up for Growth with Cloud Service
"We are managing servers designed to support 5,000 users. We own the hardware, but the hardware can fail. Microsoft is the expert on these products; they developed them, and they can manage them better than us."

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