Office 2010 Professional Ten more tidbits on Micro

Microsoft released its rebrand and refresh of its Small business Productivity On the web (BPOS), Live@Edu and Workplace Live Little Business solutions on October 19 and put all of them below the “Workplace 365″ umbrella.
Microsoft also released an early beta of the BPOS v2 solutions today and promised final delivery and more details in 2011.
A look at Office 365 (screenshots)
Here are a few additional tidbits about the coming new solutions that I’ve found around the Net and obtained from various Microsoft representatives:
1. When do the BPOS v2 solutions — the new Exchange On-line, SharePoint On-line and Lync Over the internet — go live?
A: Microsoft execs are saying 2011. But a Microsoft fact sheet I saw today said “early 2011.” This past summer, Microsoft execs told partners that the new version of BPOS would be out in the first half of this year. So I’m saying (unless there’s a delay) that “first half of 2011″ is probably a safe bet — even though Lync Server 2010 still has not been released to manufacturing and the Lync On-line update of that product won’t be ready until early 2011, at best.
2. What is Workplace 365, beyond the new release of BPOS, Microsoft’s Small business Productivity Online Suite?
A: Office 365 includes a new SMB version of what’s currently called BPOS; an enterprise version of BPOS v2; a new government version of BPOS (which is currently known as BPOS Federal); and a refresh of the student/education-focused Live@Edu offering. All of these are supposed to be out by next year.
3. What are the system requirements for Office 365?
A: Here’s a list from Microsoft of all of the client-side prerequisites:
Operating System Requirements: XP SP3, XP Home (no federated identity support, however), Windows Media Center (but no federated identity support), Vista SP2,Microsoft Office 2007 Standard, Windows 7, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard),Office 2010 Professional, 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
Office Client Requirements: Office 2007 SP2 or Workplace 2010; Workplace 2008 for Mac & Entourage 2008 Net Companies Edition; Workplace 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac; .NET 2.0 or later; Lync 2010; Communicator for Mac
New Downloads: A service connector application that will replace the Sign in application. The download will be available in the coming months.
Browser Requirements (for Administration Center and My Company Portal): World-wide-web Explorer 7 or above, Firefox 3.x,Windows 7 Key, Safari 4.x
Browser Requirements (for Outlook Web App): World-wide-web Explorer 7 or above; Firefox 3 or higher; Safari 3 or higher on Macintosh OS X 10.5; Chrome 3 and later versions. Note: Outlook Internet App also has a light version that supports a reduced set of features across almost any browser
4. What has changed between the current BPOS system requirements and the new system requirements of Workplace 365?
A: A few things:
* Workplace 2003 is not supported
* Workplace Communicator 2007 R2 with Workplace Communications Via the internet will no longer be supported
* Online Explorer 6 with the Microsoft On the internet Administration Center, My Company Portal or Outlook Internet App will no longer be supported
5. What’s changing about the pricing front?
A: The lowest-priced option is the basic version of Office 365, which is the new name for the Deskless Worker SKU. It includes e-mail and is priced at $2 per user per month.
For SMBs (primarily 1-25 users), Microsoft is offering a $6 per user per month SKU that was codenamed “BPOS Lite.” The high-end version of Workplace 365 is the full enterprise SKU, which includes licenses for Exchange On-line, SharePoint On-line and Lync Via the internet for $10 per user per month. Users can add licenses for their users of Workplace desktop software, on a subscription basis),Office 2010 Standard Key, raising the price to $24 $27 per user per month. Microsoft has said the Office 365 for Education offering will remain free for students, but will include some (still undisclosed) subscription fee for administrators. Microsoft also is not discussing the price for its planned Dynamics CRM On-line add-in, which goes live next year.
Here’s a pricing/feature chart for what’s been announced,Windows 7 X86, plan-wise for Workplace 365, so far.
As one of my sources explained the new pricing: “Prices stay the same for what you get today (actually lower in SMB/partner space since they have fewer Enterprise class needs) but additive elements allow someone to spend more for more functionality. Much like the transformation when Microsoft transitioned Core CAL users to the Enterprise CAL in the volume licensing arena — i.e., pay more to get more without formally announcing a price increase - which they don’t want to be doing and aren’t.”
6. Are there any transition tools/strategy for existing BPOS users?
A: Customers can transition in two phases: the pilot phase and the full transition. A pilot phase will be offered where customers can move some user mailboxes to Office 365 as well as view a read-only copy of their SharePoint site collections with Office 365 enabled. Once the customer is satisfied with the pilot experience they will complete the full transition at their scheduled transition date.
Here’s a link to the Workplace 365 Transition Center site.
A special note for current Workplace Live Small Enterprise users: Office Reside Modest Business is going away. From Microsoft: “The Workplace Reside Little Enterprise service will continue to run as it does today through at least October 2011. As a valued Office Live Tiny Small business customer, you will be offered 3 months free of the Union (the codename for Office 365) service should you choose to transition your account to Office 365. Nothing will change for Office Live Modest Company customers now.”
7. Can users still purchase the Office 365 component solutions separately?
A: Stand-alone purchase options for SharePoint Internet, Exchange On the net and Lync On line will still be available and will be updated with the 2010 versions at launch.
8. What about Reside Meeting?
A: Live Meeting, the conferencing component of BPOS, goes away as a standalone product with Workplace 365. That functionality is going to be part of Lync On the net.
9. What happens to the current Standard, Dedicated and Federal distinctions that are part of the current BPOS?
A: Customers can still choose to a dedicated infrastructure option with Office 365. There will be an offering that meet the needs of Federal agencies that will be comparable to BPOS Federal today. At launch, Office 365 will be FISMA compliant, and we are working closely with the GSA on this, a Microsoft spokesperson said.
10. Haven’t I heard of Office Professional Plus before?
A: Ah, you faithful Microsoft historians! Yes, even though Workplace Pro Plus is not one of the four Workplace 2010 SKUs that Microsoft currently offers, there were rumblings about an Workplace Professional Plus SKU, dating back to June, 2009. Office Pro Plus ended up becoming the subscription-based version of desktop Workplace that Microsoft will offer to its Workplace 365 users. This is the same Office Pro Plus SKU available to Microsoft volume licensees only (not retail customers).
Update: One reader asked in the comments under whether users could opt for another version of Office to be included in their Workplace 365 bundles. The official answer, from a spokesperson, is no. The exact answer:
“We have no plans to offer other Office editions on a pay as you go basis at this time. Office Professional Plus can be purchased standalone or as an add-on to any Office 365 offering for $12 per user per month, which includes Office Web Apps.”
What else do you still want to know about Workplace 365?