The 5 Things Entrepreneurs Should Know About Productivity with Office 365 at work
This article is a collaboration with Microsoft Malaysia
Ever since I started working with Microsoft and got on to Office 365 for Business, I’ve been talking to a lot of people about my personal experience. Some entrepreneurs, some executives and even some people from Microsoft.
I notice that people generally ask me a similar set of questions so I thought I’d do a bit of a Q&A here when it comes to using the Office 365 for Business.
- Is it worth upgrading to Office 365 for Business?
I think there are a lot of benefits to Office 365 for Business but with many features, the one you might like the most really differs based on your different personal preferences and work behaviour.
As for why I personally like Office 365 for Business, I covered this in my previous article here.
I also asked one of my colleagues that just recently got upgraded to Office 365 for Business. Here’s what she said.
So really everyone has different things that they like depending on how they work.
- Why subscribe per user when we already have the old licensed copies of Microsoft Office?
The old version of MIcrosoft Office is device based. So you buy a license to use on one PC. Today though we work with multiple devices. When we’re on the road we work on our mobile phones, at work we work on our work laptops and at home we sometimes work on our home PCs or tablets.
Subscribing to Microsoft Office 365 for Business gives you the software you need to work on all these devices like the latest Office 365 apps, business class e-mail, 1TB cloud storage and video conferencing.
- But that means I have to pay every year instead of just a one-off.
Well yes and no. Most of us subscribe to cloud storage at work. My company itself has been using Dropbox for the past couple of years.
I pay about $9.99 on Dropbox a month for about 1TB. Now if you click to enlarge the table here below, you’ll see a price comparison of all the other services.
If you pay $8.25 a month on Office 365 for Business you get 1TB of storage on Microsoft One Drive AND Office 365 for Business. So for paying about $1 less a month, I would get double the storage compared to what I get with Dropbox now and free Office 365 for Business. That’s a saving to me especially when you factor in the cost of having to buy a licensed copy of Office 365 for Business. If you were going to go for just One Drive on its own you can get it for $5 a month which is almost 50% cheaper than Dropbox.
Of course the truth is there is a bit of a transition cost if you’re already on another service. So for me it’s easy to shift to Office 365 for Business and One Drive on a personal use basis or if I have a smaller company, but to get my entire company of 200 people that’s another thing altogether. However I think if we work out the cost in the long run we’ll reach a point when it does become worthwhile to use Office 365 for Business and One Drive.
- How’s Skype for Business different from consumer Skype that we already use for business anyway?
Skype is a communication tool that many of us use in business. Many of our conference calls, or work calls with people overseas are done over Skype.
Skype for Business is pretty cool though. The part I like about it is that it allows someone I’m in a call with to take over my computer and do things. So say when I have e-mail problems or a tech problem, my IT guy can take over my mouse/keyboard control and trouble shoot for me.
- To use Office 365 for Business does this mean I have to be on Windows devices for my laptop and even mobile?
Nope. Microsoft’s mission is to have as many people as possible use their software regardless of the platform they’re on. Whether you use an iPhone, or Android or Mac… it doesn’t matter.
While you’re at it check out this video interview I had on Office 365 for Business.
So if your doubts are cast aside, you can sign up for Office 365 for Business here.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space