 |
| Oneyeje, Microsoft Country General Manager |
The introduction
of Office 365 recently globally is to give a boost to a business sizes,
especially the Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) says, the country General
Manager for Microsoft, Mr. Emmanuel Onyeje.
Revealing this
at a press conference in Lagos, Friday, Onyeje said the service would give
users the opportunity to work on the cloud which would relief the fear of data
loss as in the case of system crash and theft.
Released in June
2012, Office 365 is Microsoft’s next-generation cloud productivity service with
the potential to fuel business and economic transformation across the region by
delivering cost-effective and flexible access.
He explained
that Office 365 has been integrated into Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint
Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in an
always-up-to-date service at a very competitive and affordable rate.
“So far since
introduction Office 365 has over 10,000 organisations using it around the world,
many of which are small and midsize businesses,” he said.
Onyeje noted
that users do not need to be Information Technology (IT) experts to work on
Office 365 as it has based on familiar productivity tools that people are used
to, the Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Access, among others.
He highlighted
the merits of using Office 365 to include getting rid of cost attributable to
server acquisition, Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) for the server and
systems, server installation and maintenance, power generating set, its fueling
and its maintenance.
According to
Onyeje, the service would reduce the burden on climate change as there won’t be
the need for a server and power generators with their side effects on the
environment.
The Microsoft
country manager also made known that the service as well as other services of
the company has mobile versions putting into consideration that mobile phone
are becoming more common than Personal Computers (PC).
He affirmed that
there is a viable market for the service in Nigeria with over 80,000 registered
SMEs and thousands of others not registered, with the chance of global presence.
“We are evolving
from the information age to the collaboration age, where the ability to take
action on information will set successful business apart from the rest,” Onyeje
said that Office 365’s launch in the country would deliver an enterprise-grade
collaboration for all businesses.
The product also
comes with a 30 days free trial for business after signing up at the product’s
website,
www.office365.com. The free 30
days trial can also be gotten on registration with the company’s 31 leading
local service providers in the country with the added advantage of having
access to other offerings.
Speaking at the
press briefing, the Information Worker Business Group for Microsoft Africa,
Marc Israel affirmed that Office 365 provides productivity backbone for modern
businesses in Africa which will work towards the economic transformation of the
region.
Commenting on
the service, the managing director of ATB TechSoft Solutions, Abiodun Atobatele
said his company had evaluated other cloud productivity offerings in the market
before going for Microsoft’s which will help ATB TechSoft Solutions to give
support to the way at which people work while encouraging the mobility
advantage of the service.
“With the
service, we have the added benefit of working together with familiar tools on
almost any device and can make quicker decisions when needed,” Atobatele added.
Yinka Awosanya/LS
... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
