Weekly #WhyMSFT Round-Up 1/13/2012
Each week, we round up industry news and articles you might have missed. Enjoy this week’s selections.
Microsoft Office 365 1.0
If your colleagues are some distance away, or you can't easily get together to plan what you're doing, then Microsoft's Lync Online may be able to help. The program enables you to connect with others through instant messaging or video calls, or you can hold full-featured online meetings, with audio, video, screen sharing and a virtual whiteboard.
Microsoft Adds More Value to the Office 365 K-Plan
The offering came with a monthly price starting at USD $2 for the Exchange Online Kiosk Plan, which was already seen as providing great value. However, the new Office 365 changes to the K-plan are meant to deliver to users more features at the same price tag.
ElectionMall Launches Political Marketplace Platform to Integrate Online Campaign Tools
The Political Marketplace will provide businesses and start-ups with a unique and powerful new sales channel to tap into the growing political operations market. For example, the Campaign Cloud will launch with a fully integrated version of Microsoft Office 365 and 25GB of free space on Microsoft’s SkyDrive.
InfoWorld's 2012 Technology of the Year Award Winners
Microsoft Office 2010: Outlook 2010 implements the ribbon consistently throughout, while adding a slew of new connectors for social networking. Excel 2010's full 64-bit support means you can use more than 4GB of RAM, so giant pivot tables are no longer a problem. PowerPoint 2010 has expanded options for video, including the ability to stream a presentation live. Finally, don't forget Office Web Apps, the online versions that give Google Docs a run for its money.
Microsoft Pushes Lync Voice Services Into Cloud With BT Pilot
"By adding full voice support into the picture, Lync becomes a full-service hosted offering for small and medium businesses for all of their telecom needs," said Raj Mehta, president and CEO of Infosys International, an IT services firm. "It is just another sign of how cloud services can expand to displace traditional IT offerings."
Microsoft to Launch Real-Time Threat Intelligence Feed
Microsoft is looking to share its wealth of security information with the world through a new real-time threat intelligence feed, the company recently announced at the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York.
