Microsoft to beef up its entry-level Office 365 offering

Microsoft is adding some new capabilities — which include Exchange ActiveSync support — to its lowest-end Office 365 offering.

In a post to help his “The microsoft project 2010 Display Board” blog, project professional 2010 Senior Partner Technology Advisor Jesper Osgaard described some of the tweaks the Softies are making to the Office 365 K-plan (kiosk member of staff plan):

Exchange Internet Kiosk Plan: project professional 2007 is adding Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) support for mobile devices to the present Exchange Online Kiosk plan. Currently, users with that will plan only have TAKE mail capabilities. “With that change, we will allow all smartphones that support EAS, including iPhone, Andriod phones, Nokia phones (Symbian), and Windows phones, ” Osgaard blogged.

E-mail storage space: Microsoft is doubling e-mail storage for K plan users from 500 MB to at least one GB.

Exchange Online Archiving: Microsoft will be enabling “Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) which include legal hold and indefinite storage, to be offered for an add-on to any Change Online plan, including Kiosk together with Exchange Plan 1, ” he said.

I asked Osgaard when these changes may be effective and he said that date holds TBD (to get determined). Microsoft is rolling available updates across Office 365 on the quarterly basis, with the latest batch of updates hitting afterwards of 2011. Microsoft is believed to have sold in excess of 5 million Office 365 seats, 90 percent of that create gone to small small businesses.

Office 365 is this Microsoft-hosted bundle of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online that Microsoft launched in late June 2010. It is considered to be Microsoft’s alternative to Google Apps. The Kiosk arrange for Office 365 currently starts at $2 per user every month. I have a question in the Office 365 team to the timing and whether there will be any pricing changes as a result of these new features.

Bring up to date: Microsoft officials are not commenting on when the new features will be fired up. However, one Office 365 MVP, Loryan Strant, said this will happen globally “around April 2012. ” Microsoft officials did say that new features will be part of both Exchange Online K and Office 365 Nited kingdom, with prices remaining at $2 per user per month, and $4 per user each and every month, respectively.