The answers are:
- as long as a piece of string
- no

Why is this? Because moving to the cloud is a journey – not a simple migration.
Certainly moving functions like email can happen quickly, but moving from a traditional file system to something like SharePoint Online is not a change users can adapt to overnight.

In my latest piece on BoxFreeIT I talk about how moving to the cloud is a journey and doesn’t necessarily end with just Office 365.

It’s important in issues like these to be practical and look at it objectively.
The post in question on the Office 365 Community was from a user who was demanding that Microsoft explain why his Android native mail client wouldn’t work anymore and that they stop saying they support Android when in fact they don’t. That particular individual as well as several others on the forums continued to point the finger at Microsoft for failing to support their handsets.

In my latest article on BoxFreeIT I go through this issue and uncover the fact that the fault lies with Google’s Android platform and their failure to adhere to the protocols of Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).

Here’s a link to explain how ActiveSync works in Office 365 and how it can cause some devices to stop connecting to Exchange Online: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/02/07/cross-site-redirection-exchange-activesync-clients-in-office-365.aspx

A post by Exchange Customer Experience Team explaining how this began: http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/160/p/18164/104303.aspx#104303

And finally – the issue acknowledge on the Android bug tracking site: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=25527

In my latest article for Dynamic Business I explain the differences between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS and how they all interrelate.

Moving away from these market-accepted terms I’m seeing the “as a Service” tag applied to a few other things such as:
- Back-end as a Service (BaaS)
- Backups as a Service (BaaS again)
- Database as a Service (DaaS)

Will we start to see an overuse of the “aaS” suffix much the same as “cloud” is being attached to everything in IT? Will we start to see non-IT industries start to adapt it for other purposes? The redundancy will start to appear in certain segments where they already provide a service but simply utilise the tag, such as:
- Cleaning as a Service (CaaS)
- Outsourcing as a Service (OaaS)
- Marketing as a Service (MaaS)
- Catering as a Service (CaaS)
- Accounting as a Service (AaaS)

And some silly ones I thought of:
- Internet as a Service
- Hosting as a Service
- Receptionists as a Service
- Dog-walking as a Service
- Baby-sitting as a Service
- Blogging as a Service
- Comedians as a Service
- Waiters as a Service

Can you think of any good ones (serious and otherwise)? Feel free to suggestion your own via the comments.

These and other situations would usually require access to the Microsoft Online Portal to perform basic user functions.
However with the recent release of the Office 365 Mobile Admin app from Xstran you can perform these and many other functions from the palm of your hand – wherever you are.

At this point the app is only available on Windows Phone, however will soon be available for Android and iPhone.
There’s also a bunch of additional features on the roadmap so watch this space!

Full disclosure: Xstran is my company, and to unlock the full functionality of the app a subscription is required.

I must admit I really am amazed by these stealth updates. What a way to manage customer expectations – just simply release new functionality without any prior knowledge that it’s coming. It certainly is a way to ensure you keep a flock of raving fans (case in point = me).

Without further ado read about the new Lync Online functionality here at BoxFreeIT.

Irrespective of who the type of BlackBerry user you or your users/customers are – some more free things by way of the cloud in that the BES service is now available for free with Office 365 enterprise-level plans. You can be a small business and use BES, however you cannot be on the Small Business and Professional plan (aka “P” SKU).

Over on BoxFreeIT I’ve written up a walk-through on how to connect BlackBerry devices to Office 365.

Recently I blogged about the free Windows Server license being supplied by Amazon.
Just two days ago Amazon announced that since Feburary 1 they have reduces prices for S3 standard storage.
You can read more on the Amazon Web Services blog.

In case you haven’t noticed, I really find developments like this by cloud providers to be an exciting thing.
The late adopters really stand a lot to gain due to the faith and takeup of the early adopters, and this really speaks volumes to the question I get from a lot of customers about “what’s to stop the price from going up in the future?”. This is another case in point about the price going down.

Now that cloud is mainstream we saw in 2011 companies like Asus re-branding their complimentary online disk service as a cloud service. Apple rushed in with iCloud and helped make the term and concept more mainstream for consumers – which ultimately permeates through to business.
I personally still like the name “SkyDrive” – the name sounds cloud-like but also is functional in that the name implies that it is disk space in the cloud.
(FYI SkyDrive received it’s cloud-like name back in mid-2007 before cloud branding started to be attached to everything from cabling through to web hosting.)

So my not so bold prediction for 2012 is that most consumer devices will eventually come with some form of “personal cloud” functionality.
Is this good or bad?

Read my latest piece at BoxFreeIT

Register here to make sure you don’t miss the action!