You Can Finally Try the Cloud Version of Microsoft Office

We've known it was coming for a while, and now Microsoft is starting to roll out its cloud based Office suite on a large scale. Think of Office 365 as sort of like Google Docs, only powerful enough to actually accomplish real work.

Office 365 is Microsoft's subscription-based service that delivers versions of all the usual apps -- Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook with Exchange integration. There are small business and enterprise-level subscription plans available. Microsoft isn't saying a lot about the small business options, but they have made it clear that the enterprise plans start at $10/month and scale up to $24/month (per user). All of these plans include 25GB of Outlook mail storage, IM, video calls, and online meetings, and installation of SharePoint and Exchange servers. The version of Office 365 currently hitting beta is the E3 plan, which includes access to all the Office Professional Plus apps.

You can sign up for beta now, where you have two choices -- the small business plan for employees up to 25 employees, or the enterprise solution. Have you tried it, or do you plan to? We'd love to hear your thoughts about the beta in the comments.

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Dave Johnson was employed by Microsoft Corporation at the time this article was written.