As an enterprise-class instant messaging and presence solution, Microsoft Office Communications Online helps individuals be more productive without increasing their company’s IT burden. Here are some of the key benefits of the service.
Phone or e-mail "tag" is an all too common communications problem in today’s business world. Often the problem stems from workers lacking visibility into other people's availability or "presence." Presence information is especially important when there is a need for a critical business discussion or a time-sensitive decision has to be made. Office Communications Online helps organizations increase individual productivity by combining presence with instant messaging in a secure environment.
Office Communications Online adds real-time collaboration capabilities and presence to the Microsoft Office programs workers use on a regular basis, such as Microsoft Office Outlook®, Microsoft Office Excel®, and Microsoft Office Word. Integrating presence in these applications helps integrate collaboration into the everyday workflow.
Office Communications Online serves as the presence engine for Microsoft SharePoint Online sites and portals, providing presence and IM access from within SharePoint sites. SharePoint Online is a separate service available from Microsoft Online Services.
Using Office Communications Online allows person-to-person communication across an organization without expensive business travel or costly long-distance or international calls. The service gives organizations the opportunity to focus IT resources on developing value instead of running IT infrastructure. Microsoft manages the risks and complexity of operational systems.
Microsoft has extensive expertise with Office Communications Server, supporting more than 100,000 global users on the Microsoft internal network. Since 2003 when the product was introduced, Microsoft has implemented Office Communications Server client and server services in an array of environments and developed best-in-class deployment and operational practices along the way.
The Office Communications Online service is regularly upgraded to take advantage of new features that become available with service pack releases or new versions of Office Communications Server. Any upgrade to the service is available to customers at no additional charge. This means that companies are not burdened with the planning and execution of upgrades and their users can start working with the latest features and improvements without delay.
Features of Microsoft Online Services
Office Communications Online is one of a suite of services available from Microsoft Online Services. Microsoft Online Services are Internet-based services hosted by Microsoft that make it easier for a business to rapidly—and cost-effectively—access the latest communication and collaboration technologies. They help deliver business-class reliability and reduce the burden of performing routine IT management tasks such as installation, provisioning, ongoing maintenance, patches, updates, and upgrades.
Office Communications Online subscribers benefit from a set of features that are common to all Microsoft Online Services offerings: · Secure access: Microsoft Online Services are accessed via 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. Anyone who intercepts a communication sees only encrypted text.
· Business continuity: Redundant network architecture is hosted at geographically dispersed Microsoft data centers to handle unscheduled service outages. Data centers act as backups for each other: If one fails, the affected customers are transferred to another data center with limited interruption of service.
· Intrusion monitoring: Microsoft continuously monitors the Microsoft Online Services systems for any unusual or suspicious activity. If Microsoft detects such activity, it investigates and responds as appropriate. In the unlikely event that a significant incident occurs, the customer is notified.
· Security audits: Ongoing assessment of the Microsoft Online Services infrastructure ensures installation of the latest compliance policies and antivirus signatures, along with high-level configuration settings and required security updates.
· High availability: Microsoft Online Services has a 99.9 percent scheduled uptime. If a customer’s service is affected, Microsoft Online Services offers financial remedies subject to the terms and conditions of the service level agreement (SLA).
· Support: Web form and phone support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the service administrator.
· Administration Center: This easy-to-use Web site is made available to your service administrators for managing all Microsoft Online Services. This is also where service administrators can download software, such as the Microsoft Online Services Sign In application, Directory Synchronization tool, and Migration Tools.
· My Company Portal: Users log on to the My Company Portal Web site to launch Microsoft Online Services. There they can access services such as e-mail, create a SharePoint site, download the Sign In application—and more.
· Sign In application: This tool conveniently allows Microsoft Online Services end users to sign in once and access all services without being prompted repeatedly for their password.
· Virus filtering: Microsoft Online Services helps guard against online threats that could potentially affect Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online users. Microsoft Forefront™ Online Security for Exchange automatically removes viruses and spam in incoming and outgoing e-mail. Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint scans for viruses in intracompany e-mail and in all documents that reside in SharePoint Online sites.
· Directory Synchronization tool: For subscribers with an on-premise Active Directory® service deployment, this tool helps keep the on-premises Active Directory and the Microsoft Online Services directory in sync.
Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) covers desktops, laptops, Printers, Networking products etc. 
