We have an unreliable source in Microsoft claiming that Office 365 will be released in June. CEO Steve Ballmer used to be quite a good deep throat in Microsoft, but lately his predictions of product launches have been off the mark and often disputed by officials that actually run things.
Speaking in Delhi Ballmer said that Microsoft was pushing hard in the productivity space. Microsoft would launch its Office 365 cloud service, which gives Lync and Exchange and SharePoint and Office and as a subscribable service that comes from the cloud. That launches in the month of June.
The cloud service will replace the current Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and include access to Exchange, SharePoint, the Lync unified communications suite, and both desktop and Web-based versions of Office tools such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Office 365 beta has attracted more than 100,000 customers, and was recently expanded to become a public beta available to anyone.
To be fair to Steve, June is a good bet for a launch. In April, Microsoft would only say that Office 365 will launch later this year. It is in competition Microsoft is facing from Google Apps so it will need to get something out quickly.
If you believe him
Nick Farell
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view itLatest from Nick Farell