Microsoft Office 365 Launch in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR – July 7, 2011 – Microsoft Malaysia held the Malaysian launch of Microsoft Office 365, the company’s newest cloud service, at a media event at The Westin Kuala Lumpur that followed the global launch in New York on June 28, 2011. Office 365 is now available in 40 markets, and it brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service, at a predictable monthly subscription.

The service was introduced in beta last year with enthusiastic response and, in a few months, more than 200,000 organisations signed up and began testing it. Businesses using Office 365 are already reporting impressive results and reducing IT costs by up to an estimated 50 percent while boosting productivity.

Today, more than 20 service providers around the globe also shared plans to bring Office 365 to their customers this year. Bell Canada, Intuit Inc., NTT Communications Corp., Telefonica S.A., Telstra Corp. and Vodafone Group Plc, among others, will package and sell Office 365 with their own services for small and midsize businesses.

“By delivering enterprise-class collaboration and productivity tools to small and midsize businesses, Microsoft Office 365 is poised to be a revolutionary product in advanced emerging markets like Malaysia where 99.2% of businesses are SMEs,” said Microsoft Malaysia Managing Director Ananth Lazarus. “With a few clicks, Office 365 levels the playing field, and gives Malaysian businesses the ability to work more efficiently and effectively and to achieve greater success in both local and global markets.”

A Game Changer for Businesses of All Sizes

Office 365 is available in a wide range of service plans designed to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, ranging from the largest to the smallest.

With Office 365, people can stay on the “same page” using instant messaging and virtual meetings with people who are just down the hall or across the world. They can work on files and documents at the same time and share ideas as easily as they can share calendars. Office 365 gives people new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device.

Microsoft Office applications are at the heart of Office 365. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook and other Office applications connect to Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Lync to deliver a world-class solution for communication and collaboration.

“When Microsoft first showed us Office 365, we recognised that this was the way businesses would work in the future especially for the SMEs.” said SME Corporation Malaysia CEO Dato’ Hafsah Hashim who participated in the launch. “With Office 365, Malaysian SMEs are able to save both money and time, but most importantly, they are able to work together better – no matter where they are – not just within their own organisations but also with partners across their entire businesses ecosystem. The potential yield from these collaborations and synergies are nothing less than transformative.”

Stories from businesses that have tried Office 365 are available at http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

Office 365 Partners

Microsoft is building a massive partner ecosystem around Office 365, including systems integrators, software vendors, resellers and other partners. Today, that ecosystem is expanding as the company partners in new ways with market-leading service providers. These companies will package Office 365 with their own services – from Web hosting and broadband to finance solutions and mobile services – and bring those new offerings to millions of small and midsize businesses globally.

“Microsoft is working closely with some of the best-known and most-trusted brands in Malaysia to make Office 365 even more accessible to all Malaysians,” said Lazarus. “Our customers will be able to rest easy knowing their cloud services are backed by Microsoft and some of the greatest service providers in the world.”

A list of Office 365 service provider partners is available here.

About Office 365

Office 365 offers a range of service plans for a predictable monthly price from USD2 to USD27 per user per month. With Office 365 for small businesses, customers can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and an external website in minutes, for USD6 per user per month. These tools put enterprise-grade email, shared documents, instant messaging, video and Web conferencing, portals, and more at everyone’s fingertips.

Office 365 for enterprises has an array of choices, from simple email to comprehensive suites to meet the needs of midsize and large businesses, as well as government organisations. Customers can now get Microsoft Office Professional Plus on a pay-as-you-go basis with cloud-based versions of the industry’s leading business communications and collaboration services. Each of these plans comes with the advanced IT controls, innovative security technologies, 24/7 IT support and reliability customers expect from Microsoft.

Availability

Office 365 for small businesses and Office 365 for enterprises are available now. Businesses can try Office 365 for free for 30 days by signing up at http://www.office365.com. Follow Office 365 on Twitter (@Office365), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MicrosoftCloudMalaysia) and the Office 365 blog athttp://community.office365.com for the latest information.

RM20,000 Competition Open To All Malaysians

In conjunction with the Malaysian launch of Office 365, Microsoft Malaysia is holding a contest on Facebook to encourage Malaysians to download and use the free 30-day Office 365 Trial.

All Malaysians 18 years old and above are eligible to take part. Contestants will have until August 3^rd, 2011, to submit a testimonial about their experience using Office 365 in 5,000 characters or less. Entries will be published on Facebook and visitors will be invited to vote for their favourite entries. The 10 most popular testimonials will enter a final round of judging by Microsoft.

The winning testimonial will receive RM20,000 and an HTC Windows Phone 7 smartphone, while the nine runners-up will each receive an HTC Windows Phone 7 smartphone.

To find out more about the contest please visit: http://apps.facebook.com/trysharenwin/