Will 2018 be the year you switch to Office 365?

Office 365 is booming with Microsoft’s published figures revealing the number of commercial monthly active users stood at 120 million in October 2017. This represents an increase of 20 million on the previous 6 ­­­months (100 million commercial users in April 2017).

Indeed, Microsoft officials recently confirmed that the corporation expects two-thirds of its Office business customers to be working in the cloud by the end of its fiscal year 2019, which kicks off on 1^st July 2018.

So, will this be the year your business migrates to Microsoft Office 365?

Microsoft 1Q18 results

Microsoft has three reporting segments: ‘Productivity & Business Processes’, ‘Intelligent Cloud’ and ‘More Personal Computing’. The first of these sectors is where Office resides along with other services including Exchange, SharePoint and Skype.

According to figures posted by the software giant showing its results for the first quarter of its 2018 financial year, Productivity & Business Processes achieved an overall revenue of $8.24 billion, equating to a 28 percent increase ($1.8 billion) on the previous year. Just over one billion of this increase was attributed to Microsoft’s new revenue stream from LinkedIn whilst the rest came from Office 365.

5 benefits that Office 365 can offer your business

So you’ve heard all the talk about Office 365 and you know businesses are migrating to this new platform in their droves. You may already have looked at the various subscriptions but you’re still unsure whether this system could work for you.

Remember that Office 365 is more than just an updated set of tools – it’s a new way of working – so we would recommend making an appointment to discuss this solution with a member of our support team if you have any questions at this stage.

In the meantime, here are 5 of the unique benefits this software will deliver to your organisation.

• Work anywhere at any time – prepare for a flexible, seamless remote working solution with Office 365 synchronising across all your devices (desktop, tablets, phone) and your data stored in the cloud for easy access at all times.
• Predictable monthly cost – with Office 365 there are minimal upfront costs and you’ll enjoy the benefit of a flexible monthly billing process that lets you add or decrease the number of users to suit your needs.
• Data security and control – Office 365 includes built-in security and continuous compliance so small businesses can focus on their most important priorities. Thanks to 1TB of OneDrive online storage, you’ll have plenty of capacity, you’ll know where your data is and who has access to it and you can even wipe all files remotely if you lose your mobile device.
• Larger mailbox storage – if you’re struggling with lesser system, you’ll benefit from a huge 50GB of email storage space, which will make housekeeping issues a thing of the past.
• Easy licensing management – keeping track of software licences can be a real headache for a small business owner but Office 365 simplifies this process with automated updates. As soon as a new version is released, it can easily be deployed company-wide, which means all your staff will continue to work on the same version with no compatibility conflicts.