What to Expect from the Office 365 2013 Edition Overhaul

Office 365 2010 Edition and Office 365 2013 edition are quite different not only in their outward appearance but also in their functionality. Little-known difficulties with Office 2010 are now making Office 2010 an attractive target for hackers, according to Kaspersky Labs. In the past, the most common files to exploit were Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat. Adobe has come up with a more aggressive update policy and they have changed their code to help prevent these exploits. Office 2013 has been completely re-written from the ground up to be safer and to avoid these troubles for businesses who rely on Microsoft Office. Other alternatives exist, such as Google Docs and others, but they do not provide the same look, the same features, or the same document compatibility. In fact with Google Docs, it is almost impossible to save a document sent to you on a hard drive, or have someone else open it without sharing your Google login credentials. In fact this author printed out one Google document as a favor, and now my Google account was hacked and an Indonesian bartender has taken over a facebook profile he made with my Google account. I have reclaimed my Google account, although facebook refuses to remove the page. All of this is reason enough to not go with cheap imitation software. Only Microsoft Office, with the latest versions and updates, is the industry standard. That will provide you with the most functionality and the greatest protection.

One of the new things that are available are public folders. SharePoint has its place for sharing and storing archived material, but it is too complex for some users to actually adopt and collaborate with, and the most important change that can happen in the workplace because of enterprise software is collaboration. So with Office 365 we can expect a lot more collaboration in businesses everywhere adopting the new Office 365.

Another good thing is that Lync and Skype will have improvements in video chat and collaboration. In Lync multiple faces can be seen when meeting with multiple persons in a “Brady Bunch” configuration. Skype users will have an easier time-sharing files because Skype will be federated to the user’s Skydrive account.

For tablet users, Office 365 has great news! Office 2013 is optimized for the Windows 8 tablet. All commands are touch-enabled, and pages can be flipped in a document just like flipping pages in a book.

For users who have mixed Mac and PC environment, users can install Mac or PC version of office on up to five computers even if they are not of the same kind, such as one on Mac and three on PC’s and one on a PC Notebook. Users who may be stuck on someone else’s computer occasionally, can use Office On Demand. With this feature, you can quickly sign in and use the office application that you wish to use, and when you leave that computer you leave no trace of the application or the work that has been done there. This feature is great for people on the go. A Windows 8 on a USB Key is also available, though it must require careful preparation. With it, users can use their own environment on someone else’s computer with no trouble at all.

Desktop Office 2013 has become a whole lot cooler too. You can now embed web parts such as bing maps directly into excel spreadsheets and word documents, and the interface has just gotten a whole lot less cluttered.

For help in deciding on, implementing, and training your employees with new technology you need to go to the Microsoft Experts. We have been with Microsoft since DOS was released the operating system that existed before Windows. Call us for an informal chat at any time at 646-853-0573.