Skype for Business is here

 

We all love Skype , especially the ease at which it facilitates communication . It has become an integral part in the lives of many Consumers and Small Businesses.

Now Microsoft has released Skype for Business which combines the simplicity and ease of use of Skype with the Business features of Lync Online , its Corporate Platform for Unified Communication.

There are 2 very apparent benefits available to the Organizations who use Skype for Business a) The Skype User Experience a) Ability to communicate with Skype users . This was not so simple when using Lync Online.

What’s more, Skype for Business is a part of Office 365 , the super loved Cloud Productivity Service from Microsoft.

To know more about Skype for Business , please visit the following link :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/uc.aspx

To understand how your Organization can benefit by adoption Unified Communication tool like Skype for Business, visit

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/uc_benefits.aspx

Please leave your valued feedback by clicking here

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/techgyani/videos

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

 

Technorati Tags: Skype,Skype for Business,Lync Online,Office 365,Cloud,SMAC,Suresh Ramani,TechGyan

SharePoint Team Sites

 

SharePoint Technologies,which is a part of Office365  Cloud Services ,  is one of the best Technologies for Collaboration to come out of the Microsoft Stable. While it has many components which aid in Collaboration, one component which really stands out is Team Site.

So what really is a Team Site?

Think of Team Site as a Digital Enclosure with restricted entry. It is a virtual space in which Team Members can collaborate securely. In order to understand the different scenarios under which you can use Team Sites in your Company , large or Small, read the details at the following link : http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/TeamSite.aspx

If you wish to understand how you can use SharePoint in your Company , have a look at the video which appears on the link below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Collaboration.aspx

You can also watch the video on our YouTube channel at :

http://youtu.be/EzzYGK5DRiM

So reap the benefits of Team Collaboration by implementing Team Sites . Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

What is SharePoint

 

SharePoint Technologies, is one of the best Technologies for Collaboration to come out of the Microsoft Stable. However , many people are quite confused about the capabilities of the same. It means different things to different people. And Microsoft has not made it easier for people to understand SharePoint .

In order to help people understand SharePoint , I have created a short 5 minute video which explains what is SharePoint . It gives a broad overview of SharePoint . So once you have seen the video, you will be clear on the capabilities of SharePoint . And then you can focus on that aspect of SharePoint which is most appealing to you.

Have a look at the video which appears on the link below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Collaboration.aspx

You can also watch the video on our YouTube channel at :

http://youtu.be/EzzYGK5DRiM

Let me know if there are any questions on the same after you have seen the video .

So get going and implement SharePoint and reap the benefits of Collaboration.! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office365 plans compared and decoded

 

Office365 , the Cloud based Business Productivity Service from Microsoft is getting more and more subscribers with every passing day.

Since one size does not fit all and the needs of different users is bound to be different , Microsoft has introduced a variety of plans . This has caused some confusion among the users who are not sure as to which plan is most suitable for them .

No worries ! I have tried to simplify the complex plans in a manner which will help you understand the various options . Have a look at the various plans and features at the link given below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365PlansComparison.aspx

I would also suggest that you have a look at the link given below which will help you in understanding of the plans and give you a quick overview:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365Plans.aspx

I hope that you would have a much clearer picture of the Office365 plans once you have reviewed the information. If you still have questions , feel free to ask .

So get going and implement Office365 in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Enhancements to Office365

 

Office365, the Cloud Service from Microsoft , has been enhanced in a major way recently. Let me share the improvements with you.

1) Exchange Online Plan P1 goes up from 25 GB to 50 GB per mailbox

2) Exchange Kiosk goes up from 1 GB to 2 GB per mailbox

3) Shared Mailbox storage doubled to 10 GB

4) Resource Mailbox storage doubled to 10 GB

5) Site Mailbox storage remains at 5 GB

6) SkyDrive Pro storage goes up from 5 GB to 25 GB

7) SkyDrive Pro file size limit increased to 2 GB

8) SkyDrive Pro can now store 20,000 files from personal libraries

9) Versioning now enabled by default on SkyDrive Pro documents with default of 10 file versions

10) Shared with me view of SkyDrive Pro helps to easily locate files shared by your colleagues with you

11) Recycle bin retention increased from 30 days to 90 days

Let's look at what that means for the overall storage for each user. With Office 365, you get 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage + 50 GB of email storage + 5 GB for each site mailbox you create + your total available tenant storage, which for every Office 365 business customer starts at 10 GB + (500 MB x # of user(s).

I am really excited with these announced enhancements . What about you?

To know more about Office365 Service , click here .

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office Mobile for Android Phones

 

Greetings !

Microsoft has just announced the availability of the World’s BEST productivity software , MS Office , for Android Phones .

How do I get Office for my Android?

To get Office Mobile, you should have a subscription of Office365 which includes Office Pro Plus . If you have this subscription, then you can get the Office Mobile as a FREE download from the following location:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.officehub

For more details of Office365, click: http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365.aspx

Note that if you are a Windows Phone User, the Office Mobile comes pre installed on your Phone. For more details on Windows Phone, click :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/WindowsPhone.aspx

When will it be available?

To begin with , it is available for Customers in USA . However, over next few weeks , other countries will be covered and we should expect the availability in India in a few weeks from now.

What can I do with Office for Android Phone?

You can view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint files on your Android Phone.

For more details on the announcement and capabilities , click :

http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/07/31/office-mobile-for-android-phones.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

What is SkyDrive Pro

 

Greetings !

In my last post, I discussed about my personal Cloud which is SkyDrive . Today I shall talk about SkyDrive Pro .

 

Difference between SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro

The first question which will come to anyone’s mind is how’s SkyDrive Pro different from SkyDrive ? So here we go:

1) SkyDrive is your Personal Cloud which can be used to store your documents, pictures, videos , songs . SkyDrive Pro on the other hand is your Professional Cloud. And it is primarily to store your documents since in our professional work , we mainly work with documents .

2) SkyDrive Cloud is hosted as a free service on Microsoft Servers. SkyDrive Pro Cloud on the other hand, is hosted on SharePoint , whether On Premise or Online, as a part of Office365 Cloud Service . So it is essentially a part of your Company Intranet .

3) The document storage in SkyDrive is simple storage without any version control. The documents in SkyDrive Pro have built in capability of version control.

4) You can add ratings feature to your SkyDrive Pro document library . This is not available in SkyDrive .

How do you get SkyDrive Pro

SkyDrive Pro comes in 2 parts

a) A component of Microsoft SharePoint , either SharePoint Online or SharePoint Server

b) Client component of Office 2013 Pro Plus .

So when you install Office 2013 Pro Plus , the SkyDrive Pro gets auto installed . But kindly note that unless you have SharePoint , the SkyDrive Pro does not have much use. So it would be correct to state that SkyDrive Pro = SharePoint + Office Pro plus 2013

This is My SkyDrive Pro

Now let me deep dive into my SkyDrive Pro . Given below is the screen shot of my PC. I have highlighted 2 icons a) SkyDrive b) SharePoint . The SkyDrive icon is my SkyDrive . The SharePoint icon is actually the SkyDrive Pro icon.

Now let me go inside my SharePoint ( SkyDrive Pro ) folder :

As can be seen , I have 6 folders in my SharePoint folder . Of these , there are 2 Admin folders , 2 Marketing folders , 1 Sales folder , 1 Jobs & Hiring folder .

Now let me go one level deeper into the Techgyan Events folder within Marketing:

As is seen above, I have highlighted the path . Within the Techgyan Events , you can see 6 folders representing 6 events which we have recently hosted. Against each folder on the left , you can see a green tick indicating that the folder is in sync with the Cloud. These folders are all on my PC. And where is the Cloud? Lets see that :

The Cloud is on our SharePoint which is part of our Office365 Service hosted and managed by Microsoft .I have highlighted few portions as follows:

1) The Internet path where our SharePoint is located

2) The Marketing Team site

3) TechGyan Events

And within TechGyan events are the same folders which appear above on my PC as local folders.

So the way I use SkyDrive Pro is that I have offline access to various document libraries of different Teams in our Company like Sales, Admin, Marketing . These folders are shared with the respective Team members . So whether I am in office or outside, I am actually working on files available on the hard disk of my local PC . This gives me great speed as I work on files which are locally available and NOT on the Internet nor on my SharePoint site .

 

SkyDrive Pro usage scenarios

So having understood the above , SkyDrive Pro gives rise to various interesting scenarios :

1) If I go to outstation and I do not have access to Internet continuously, I need not stop my work. I would continue to work . And as soon as the PC senses Internet connection, it will automatically sync the changes to my SharePoint Server . And it will only sync the delta changes , making it extremely fast .

2) If my Office Internet has slowed down for any reason, I don’t have to slow down as I am working locally on my PC . All my edits will get auto synced with my SharePoint server depending on the speed of my Internet. But that does not affect my work as I continue to work with the locally available SharePoint files.

3) This also is a great way to have an offline backup of my SharePoint data .

Hopefully I have been able to explain to you what is SkyDrive Pro. Trust me, its an awesome technology once you start using it . This one piece of Technology can improve your productivity by leaps and bounds. Seriously !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com