Microsoft has truly changed course with Office 365

A few years ago I created a post on how far behind the curve Microsoft was with cloud offerings. I had personally placed more clients within Google Apps for Business at a rate of 100 to 0 over Office 365. Now the tides have tremendously turned. Many of the clients who went from On-Premise Exchange to Google Apps for Business have transitioned to Office 365 Enterprise or Office 365 Business Premium. There is a pattern in why these clients are moving back to a Microsoft platform. Some are more apparent than others. I will discuss some of the reasons and changes I have come across as well as my personal thoughts on the service and what it has meant for my clients.

To begin, I would like to first go over the current trend I work with on a normal basis. Many of my small and medium business clients who were still holding onto Windows SBS infrastructures, are now transitioning to Office 365. For the most part, these are the clients who were holding onto their equipment for as long as they could, or were waiting on budgets to align. These were also many of the clients that found that Google Apps for Business was not the right fit for their organization. After sitting down with many of these clients, and discussing what Microsoft currently offers with Office 365, verses building a new exchange server on top of upgrading outdated servers, they were finally more interested in moving their exchange services to a solution that was off-premise. For most of these clients the transition is fairly smooth: migrating mailboxes, creating a new Outlook profile, configuring new DNS settings, AD sync, and all of the details for a proper migration. Most organizations elect to go for the full license of the Office 365 suite and Lync, while others keep their previous Office suite volume licensing. These small and medium businesses are welcoming this change because of the availability for multiple device access, and remote or after-hour use. Many are already comfortable with accessing their email on their company provided or personal cell phones. With tablets and ultrabooks, the transition to mobile workstations has surpassed desktop sales for most of my clients. Very few businesses I work with have purchased a desktop computer in the last three years. Though Windows SBS offered Remote Web Workplace and Outlook Web App, very few of these clients tapped into the on-premise features that were open for remote use. As a result the organization was not in alignment with the technology they had at hand. Fast forward to the present time and they are requesting a remote cloud based solution. So why now? For starters when you begin displaying to the client that the servers are getting long in the tooth and that a critical element of their day to day tasks sit directly in their office, they realize that the responsibility lies directly on their shoulders. When something breaks, there is usually a technician dispatched to try and fix the problem (after the technician exhausts all remote options). This is the song and dance that has continued for many years. The ability for them to take the hardware and maintenance cost out of the equation, and have a service that is primarily up >90% of the time, budgets begin to shift from down time while awaiting the technician to arrive and then correct the issue, to rarely ever calling the technician for a full outage. The mobile aspect and push for greater uptime with less responsibility are two of the key feature these organizations are reaching for in this transition.

The next transition I would like to discuss is one that has sort of caught us off guard: existing Google Apps for Business clients shifting to Office 365. I say “caught off guard” but the reality is more in line with the number of businesses that are making this transition. We expected for some of our clients to transition due to the fact that they are still heavy Microsoft Office platform clients. During the transition from on-premise exchange to Google Apps for Business they requested the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GASMO) tool as well as only using the storage portion of Google Drive. The pattern again here is the technology is not in alignment with the organizations daily operations. Google’s spreadsheet formatting was not optimal for their use in the majority of the scenarios. GASMO was restricting common calendaring features that were not supported by Google. For these clients the end result of migrating to the Office 365 for Business or Enterprise was just a matter of a few features, and the ultimate end goal of the technology being in alignment with their business operations. Some of the particular features, which may sound small to some but can make a huge impact to others, are things such as having a Global Address list integrate seamlessly with Active Directory, Excel documents integrating with CAD and REVIT drawings and diagrams, calendaring, and syncing color coding of entries seamlessly across devices. The last feature is the web interface of the platform. Microsoft has gone to great lengths in the last years to provide as many of the same features and user experience in the web platform as they offer in the desktop platform. With all of this being said, their reasoning the majority of the time is “We prefer the look, feel, and integration of Microsoft”. One of the other statements we get is that an executive or executives would just prefer Microsoft. So after a few years of organizations waiting out Microsoft’s shift, and improvements in their hosted services, clients are gaining a new found comfort in going back to the Microsoft business solution. This process of migration has also made a low impact on the required resources needed to migrate as well. Many online resources are available to transition from Google to Microsoft and visa versa. At the same the cost of migrating platforms in this manner is reduced in comparison to the cost of an on-premise migration.

Through both of these transitions I have displayed what some of my clients points of views are and what they have faced. I would like to now introduce my thoughts of the transition process.

The transition from on-premise to Office 365 has a greater impact on many organizations than you might think. The move to off load resources on-premise to a cloud solution being the most significant. This reduces overhead and cost of ownership. It alleviates the stress of relying on local hardware and the imminent factor of unforeseen minor or major disasters that range anywhere from a power outage to a life threatening natural disaster. These stresses on a physical server can begin to cause degradation on both the server and the attached storage housing the information. With a hosted solution many of the organizations resources are still available as long as the user can seek any type of internet access. Financially, the transition changes from usually a high dollar one-time project cost and ongoing maintenance costs to a long term subscription solution. This subscription fee also increases as the number of employees and features increase. In the same token, a growth in employees and features could increase costs if your on-premise solutions are contracted out as well. It really depends on the organizations structure. In the long run what this solution does benefit from is the removal of outdated equipment and the cost to upgrade once again within the ever shortening life cycle of close to three years for both servers and software. Granted these can be stretched past this theoretical life cycle.

The transition from Google Apps for Business to Office 365 has for the most part been pretty seamless. These clients making this transition are already hosted in the cloud. Moving data out of Google does have a window of 2GB per day per account no matter what service you transition to. That limitation alone needs to be factored in to properly manage the migration project. The majority of the labor on this transition is conducted at the desktop level. This includes setting up the Microsoft Office suite and loading the profiles. One of the distinct complications I have come across in this transition was primarily calendaring. Again much of it with color coding and personal settings within Outlook. Aside from the calendars, the contacts are the usual suspect and the first thing end users see as hardships in the transition. Contacts have been the stifler for every migration I have conducted. I can not count how many times the end users have improperly merged contacts on numerous devices they use. Aside from these few short comings, leveraging a third party to extract the data from Google is strongly recommended as it reduces the actual hands on hours in the migration.

For the most part the feedback on Office 365 has been fairly great. I can clearly state from a support stand point and the interactions with both Google and Office 365 support, Microsoft is very active in finding the resolution. Google on the other hand is, in my point of view, engineering centric with a very hands off approach to the end users. Many of the clients who are now on Office 365 are submitting less requests based on compatibility issues. They are also more focused on utilizing more features within the platform. The collaboration process has grown with clients using Lync, developing their SharePoint sites, and learning how the semi-confusing OneDrive for Business operates. As an employee of a Managed Service Provider, I can say that the one area with the greatest learning curve when transitioning to Office 365 for the end user is their online storage. OneDrive for Business is directly integrated with SharePoint. Many of the end users are accustomed to their cloud vaults being very easy to access and setup. This is one thing DropBox and Google have in common that make their services stand out. I personally feel that even if the backend is SharePoint based, Microsoft can integrate the links into the OneDrive profile a little more seamless than in its current configuration. Then allow the end user to paste additional SharePoint folders provided by the company or shared from individuals.

To close I would like to say that though I do not personally use Office 365, I can vouch for many clients that have made this transition. Office 365 for my organization would not be in alignment with how we operate. We do on the other hand have our own Office 365 account  which is primarily used for both testing and training both in the cloud and on the desktop. I hope that some of the insight and knowledge you have read in this article will either help you in your transition or will provide a minor insight as to what impact moving to Office 365 will have for your organization.

Microsoft's own stalemate is helping push Small Business to the cloud.

A growing trend I've seen develop over the last months are many small businesses moving from SBS to Cloud. Companies are opening their eyes and seeing all of the opportunities of hosting their data verses housing their data in house. When a company thought of SBS they imagined a scaled down enterprise grade environment that would be iron clad. For the most part that vision is true. If you began your business three years ago. A major shift in business is just beginning. The name it carries right now is Cloud Services. If you look at where the curve began you can see where Microsoft failed to get ahead of this curve. Step back ten years ago there where many smoke signals displaying the shift that was going to happen. Palm and Microsoft started a great push in mobile technology that fueled what we have today. Many other players as well such as Nokia and Blackberry. Some of these companies road the lip of a wave too long. As you can see now both companies are surfing close-out waves. Both companies are pointing toward mobile management solutions. This is a trend I personal do not see fading.

I spoke of small business but let me push focus to a large scale environment for a moment. A few years ago Government was tied into the Microsoft ecosystem heavily. If you can understand the scale of equipment and cost it is very obvious this was not only a heavy upfront cost but a high maintenance cost as well. With technology this has been a given. The only way to truly bring this cost down is versatility. Though having active sync and web based access to you data and applications was a possibility it was not a friendly option. During my days of service with the 82nd Airborne I used a Palm i705 to access active directory and exchange while jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Being the second man out of the bird directly behind my commander I had to have all communications up and live before my commander had time to lock and load his weapon. I had purchased the i705 personally. The military had not moved beyond toughbooks for access to email and data at the time. An advantage that I put into the hands of my commander was access to not only battlefield comms but quick and reliable access to email, calendar, and files. Before operations I removed my email account and loaded my commanders, as well as loading any Word, Excel, and Access data files he needed. I quickly saw a need but at the same time I saw a limitation. How could I push this envelope securely and give my commander more information. So I developed an in-house company website housed on a small server that only we had access to at the time. Now my operations data could be put on the internal website, updated, and we had real time data at our finger tips (stylus rather). Again this technology was not abroad in the military. Fast forward to today and you can understand that this vision has been but in play by all aspects of Government. Battlefield commanders have access to non secure data at any point during an operation. Secure data still has a tight lipped channel and solutions that differ and wont be spoke of here. A shift in having direct access to information has began to move from encrypted connections internally to devices that can decrypt the data in your hand remotely. An essential reason why Government can make the shift from a Microsoft environment to a Google Apps environment. Encryption happens at both ends. Devices can be remotely wiped and locked. Something that was available by Microsoft but at a higher cost. Files can be accessed remotely with a simple dropbox account. Workstations can be securely accessed via Remote Desktop Protocol. Anything now can be accessed remotely.

Lets shift back to small business. If anything can be accessed remotely then why fork out a high overhead in equipment for an internal workspace only option. Its understood that access can be granted to SBS servers and data can be remotely available. Equipment can have a heavy upfront cost but factor in maintenance and support and the cost continues to rise. Future development relies on the current equipment to be compatible and well tested. Hard drives fail and the equipment needs proper ventilation and cooling to maintain operations. Now you need to include warranty cost etc. The bill continues to rise for ownership of the equipment. Not to mention backup needs. For years we have thrown a lot of money at this solution that really doesn't fit properly for small business profit gains. The majority do not have in-house I.T. staff to shuffle this task and need 90% of it outsourced. Microsoft has not built directly around this concept and left most of these business needing more and spending more. Small Businesses want to buy iPhones because they can use them for business and personal. Complete an email, respond to a phone call, then shoot a photo or video of their child having fun. Where is the Microsoft equivalent device that fits this business model. Slowly getting out of the crawling phase and trying to run a marathon. Now visualize the documents you have created in that great Office suite you bought. It works well on your computer at work. It displays well, emails, collaborates, and functions great on the workstation in the office. Though can you find a good Microsoft provided option to use it mobile. Not without a third party workup that has minimal options. Without a notebook or netbook you can not recreate the experience properly. Many alternatives are available that is understood. That is why Cloud has become a common Small Business word. If you can not get all of this from the equipment you house then what is your alternative. A hosted option. Even though the hosted option has its own drawbacks and limitations the outcome out weighs the pitfalls.

To conclude: unless Microsoft moves quickly the only shift Microsoft will see in its favor is its own software being used for Enterprise Management. Sitting still and working on an OS that will serve two purposes is not the answer. Microsofts stalemate is not deciding between itself to separate the desktop from the mobile scene.

Maturity in the business world does not happen over night.

Having spent many years of my career supporting Microsoft products (not so much for the love of them), I really feel that Google has moved the business of hosted products to equal if not the better choice.

Google Docs has brought the office suite that you can take anywhere. Something Microsoft failed to provide until Office 360. Though I must admit Google Docs has a flaw that is hard to over come. In App support. If you have an application that exports a word or excel format and have your office suite hosted in the cloud then you lose export functionality in that application. Now I am sure there is either an API or plugin to fix this. Which leaves you limited to your vendor support.

Gmail has become an email service yet to be matched by any other out there. I have about a dozen email addresses from all sorts of mail providers. In previous years I used a few accounts for spam, family, business, RSS feeds you name it. At the time it was easier to sign up with a service and filter traffic through different accounts. With Gmail it is complex yet simple enough to precess a large inbox and have the noise out of the way as soon as you check your messages. It's unmatched.

Google+ in Google Apps. Facebook has brought a lot of attention to business. Social media has become a perfect marriage for marketing products to broad audiences with very little effort. Almost every business markets themselves on social media. Google+ allows companies to tie their employees social side of business right into their Google Apps profile. Though Google+ currently does not feature business integration as far as company profile, I can see no reason why it would not be a comfortable choice for companies who use Google Apps to adopt when made available. As a company, the ability to show your company enthusiasm by having your employees Google+ profile attached to a company Google+ page creates a positive image for the company. It's the elevator pitch of a life time if done right. "Hi, this is our company. Here is our marketing team. Here is what our company is about. This was our goal we hit. This is why we love you as a customer!" You can add the company to a circle. More so you can drill down and add just the marketing team because that is who you normally deal with. Then in the marketing team you pull out a few favorites and add the to a more personal circle because you have common interest or business with them specifically. What better way is there to be social other than face to face. Done correctly Google+ could tie social media into the business suite with less headache and effort.

There are quite a few tools tucked away into Google Apps but the last one I will cover today is message continuity. As I have only begun to discover this function the positives are weighing heavy for the business application of this feature. Some businesses will always swear by exchange. Which is fine. To each their own, but having the option to duplicate your mail in the cloud to extremely reduce down time for messages during outages is hands down important. Some Postini configurations, additions and configurations to exchange, and you have a redundant mail client that goes with you and synchronizes between Gmail and Microsoft Exchange. This my friends has become the best of both worlds answer that will make cloud backup a positive note for business.