SharePoint Online and BPOS Changes On the Way!

Microsoft is busy giving partners glimpses of the offerings to come for BPOS users and there are a few features that we here at EAC are very excited about. As you know, BPOS will automatically upgrade to the 2010 Office products towards the end of this year. What does this mean for you as a customer?

Microsoft Office Web Applications

Microsoft will be rolling out 2010 versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote to BPOS users. These will also be rolled out to the “Deskless Worker Plus” category. This will allow users to, at a minimum, the capability to view and edit online (even if they don’t have Office installed locally)!

SharePoint 2010 Features for BPOS Standard

Coming soon to BPOS will be some SharePoint 2010 enterprise features such as Access Services, InfoPath, Excel Services, and Visio Services. What does that mean to you? Well, it brings a more fully customizable SharePoint service to the table. SharePoint will allow customized code through the use of Silverlight so that you can have web parts created which work for how your business works. SharePoint in the cloud will now be able to work in many of the ways SharePoint on-premise works.

With Silverlight added to SharePoint customers have the ability to make the user experience absolutely any way they wish… Hi-Fidelity forms, full featured application spaces, anything at all. Data for the Silverlight application plug-ins can come from SharePoint lists or existing on-premise and internet based web services.

Another great feature that will be coming is the “My Sites” feature of SharePoint. Basically, each employee in your organization that has a SharePoint license can be authorized for a My Site where that employee can store documents, work on tasks, or share expertise with others. A great feature of My Sites is the ability for employees to rate or comment on each other’s work. If Sally in accounting puts together a great explanation of how to fill out the timetables, Bill in engineering can rate that work highly. These comments and tags are searchable so that good work “floats” to the top of the cloud.

Internet and Extranet Capabilities

Right now, BPOS gives you an intranet capability. Basically, you are connected within your company. What is coming up is an internet capability utilizing SharePoint for internet sites. You will be able to bring the website you currently are maintaining into the umbrella with the rest of your business intelligence.

We are very excited about the announced extranet capability. This capability will be offered at an additional cost, but it gives corporations who are working corporate to corporate a way to work together. The extranet site is private and password authenticated by invitation only. If Sally in Company A needs to work for a month with Nancy in Company B, she could invite and authorize Nancy to use the company extranet site. They could easily collaborate on the project and share their documents. In essence, you are enabling your full supply chain to access your staff.

Business Security

And as usual, Microsoft is constantly upgrading the security of their datacenters. A very recent announcement illustrated the focus and commitment on complying with standards. BPOS now complies with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001, the Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 Type I and Type II, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

*Disclaimer: Many of these services are in Pre-Beta form. Final licensing decisions and costs as well as the timing of the features will be released in the next few months so stay tuned!