Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses is a subscription service that combines Microsoft Office Web Apps with a set of web-enabled tools that are easy to learn and use. This all works with your existing hardware, and comes backed by the robust security, reliability, and control you need to run your business.
With some Office 365 plans, you have access to familiar Office applications that are installed locally on your PC, but are downloaded and licensed from the cloud. Those Office 365 service plans expand this experience by combining those Office applications with the latest versions of our cloud productivity services: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online. These familiar services combine to provide you with the most comprehensive productivity solution for your business.
The Office 365 service offerings enable you to work with email, documents, and data from virtually anywhere and on nearly any device with a familiar productivity experience on PCs, phones, and in browsers. This means that an appropriate device, Internet connection, and supported versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari browsers are required.
Access from mobile devices requires Wi-Fi capability or depends on carrier network availability. Keep in mind that some mobile functionality requires Office Mobile 2010, which is included with specific releases of Windows Phones and Nokia phones. Office Mobile 2010 is NOT included in Office 2010 applications, suites, or Web Apps. There are some differences between the features of Office Web Apps, Office Mobile 2010, and the Office 2010 applications.
To get the best experience, we recommend that customers meet our system prerequisites. For example, the prerequisites for the SMB package option include web browser support. Office 365 services will not work if customers are using Internet Explorer 6 or if they try to connect with Office 2003. If you don't meet these requirements you can still use our standalone services for email and web security. Learn more about Office 365 system requirements here.
