Office 365 refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services). Office 365 includes plans for use at home and for business. Learn about Office 365 for use at home. Office 365 plans for business include services such as Skype for Business web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with OneDrive for Business.

Many Office 365 plans also include the desktop version of the latest Office applications, which users can install across multiple computers and devices. The fully installed applications include: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. (Publisher and Access are available on PC only.) And you can install them across multiple devices, including PCs, Macs, Android tablets, Android phones, iPad, and iPhone. When you have an active Office 365 subscription that includes the desktop version of Office, you always have the most up-to-date version of the applications.

The Office 365 plans that are online-only are a great choice for certain business needs, and they are designed to work with the latest version of Office, Office 2013, and Office 2011 for Mac. Previous versions of Office, such as Office 2010 and Office 2007, may work with Office 365 with reduced functionality. Get more details about which Office versions are supported. NOTE: This compatibility with Office does not include the Exchange Online Kiosk or Office 365 Enterprise K1 plans.

All Office 365 plans are paid for on a subscription basis, monthly or annually.

Microsoft Office is the name we still use for our familiar productivity software. Office suites are available as a one-time purchase and include applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which can be installed on only one PC or Mac. The applications are not automatically updated; to get the latest version, you can purchase the product again when the new version becomes available. The latest versions currently available for one-time purchase are Office 2016 for Windows and Office 2016 for Mac. These suites do not come with any of the cloud-based services included in Office 365.

Office 365 is designed to work with the latest version of Office, Office 2013, and Office 2011 for Mac. Previous versions of Office, such as Office 2010 and Office 2007, may work with Office 365 with reduced functionality. If you have Office 2003 or an earlier version, you will need to update to a newer version of Office in order to use Office 365; or you can subscribe to one of the many Office 365 plans that include the latest version of Office. In addition to getting the latest version of Office as part of your subscription, you will also get automatic updates, so your Office will always be up to date. Please see our VxCloud O365 Plans.

You don't need to install anything in order to use Office 365.

To help you easily connect your desktop version of the latest version of Office, Office 2013, Office 2010, or Office 2007 to Office 365, Microsoft provides Office 365 customers an installable piece of software—called “Office Desktop Setup�—at no charge.

Office Desktop Setup provides many benefits, including:

• Automatically detecting necessary updates.
• Installing updates and components upon approval or silently from a command line.
• Automatically configuring Outlook and Microsoft Skype for Business for use with Microsoft Office 365.
• Uninstalling itself from the client computer after running.

You can find and install Office Desktop Setup in your Office 365 administration centre. VxCloud will assist the clients to create and manage the administration centre.

If your plan includes a subscription to Office, you will also be able to install that directly from the Office 365 administration centre.

VxCloud and a Cloud Service Provider will provide the end to end O365 cloud services to clients. The services is outlined as follows:

1. Preform the O365 readiness assessment
2. Create the licensing, integration and migration paths for O365
3. Map the client requirements to O365 licensing
4. Work with Microsoft to perform the migration designs
1. Provide networking guidance for the deployment of the VxCloud Cloud Networking Services based on a South African hosted SD-WAN for better bandwidth
2. DNS changes
3. Migration tools
4. Client desktop deployment and requirements
5. Perform the O365 and Active Directory integration and support plans
6. Complete the migration and integration, and perform optional support

Traditional networks are falling short because of their old designs and architecture. Public Cloud workloads including IaaS, O365 and others are presented over the internet and the VxCloud SD-WAN solution is presented as the new generation of “Cloud Networking to Perfection�. The internet is the new network and VxCloud SD-WAN in not just focused on main sites and well connected network areas, we also focus on providing the SD-WAN solution for the new generation of cloud branch offices.

VxCloud experts can provide guidance regarding the different products and features. Please call us on 087 815 1000 or email us on admin@vxcloud.co.za.

The following website will also provide additional info for clients to explore Microsoft Office 365 FAQ. Almost all versions for Windows and Linux are supported. The correct version of platform is selected as part of the VxCloud proposed cloud roadmap strategy.

VxCloud supports the full deployment of the Microsoft O365 E5 plan that includes the Skype for Business Cloud PBX. The combination of the VxCloud telephony services (PSTN and VoIP), SD-WAN (Cloud Networking) and Hosting Services allows us to deploy and host the Skype for Business Cloud Connector. VxCloud provides the design and deployment of the Skype for Business Cloud Connector Edition in SA to support PSTN and VoIP integration.