Group items tagged

www.office.com/setup Blogs: The shrouded veil of secrecy has been lifted from the latest edition of Microsoft Office. Excitement for Office 2016 is still lagging behind the Windows 10 enthusiasm camp, but following the July 29 release of Windows 10, attention will return to the world's most popular productivity suite.When Does Windows 10 Come Out, How Can You Get It & What Happens to the Technical Preview? When Does Windows 10 Come Out, How Can You Get It & What Happens to the Technical Preview?Windows 10 is coming soon. Still confused about how the upgrade will work and wondering about the timeline? We have some answers, although more questions remain.READ MORE Office 2016, like Windows 10, has been re-designed within a revised Microsoft ethos. Office 2016 has been built from the ground-up with mobile and cloud users in mind, slotting in with the ever expanding fleet of Microsoft productivity applications. Office is, in general, a different set of tools from days gone by. We aren't confined to the five-or-so core products, and we can expand the functionality of the Office ecosystem using a massive range of add-ins and templates. Office 2016 logo - www.office.com/setup I'm using VirtualBox to preview Office 2016. Microsoft strongly suggested uninstalling Office 2013, which isn't currently viable due to work commitments. Using a virtual machine, however is a great way to explore different Office products alongside each other, without having to uninstall your current suite. I've also had a look at Office 2016 on Windows 10 Build 10130. Verdict: good times.How To Use VirtualBox: User's Guide How To Use VirtualBox: User's GuideLearn to use VirtualBox. Get virtual computers up and running inside your computer, without having to buy any new hardware.READ MORE Anyway, enough of that. Let's look at Office 2016. NEW OVERVIEW Much akin to the extended and inclusive testing phase of Windows 10, the Office 2016 preview has now accumulated over 1 million users,

how to Fix Office 2016 error 1706 - www.office.com/setup Blogs www.office.com/setup Blogs: Operating Systems: www.office.com/setup Blogs: This error can occur with the following versions of Microsoft Windows Operating System: Windows 8/8.1 Windows 7 Windows 10 Windows Vista Windows Server Edition (2008/2012) The error is found in following version of MS Office Office 2010 Office 2013 Office 2016 Office 365 How To Fix Office 2016 error 1706 Repair Difficulty : Medium Uninstall Old office Installation Windows 8 1) Press Windows key + Q. A search box will come up on right hand side.Type Control in the box and press Enter. www.office.com/setup Blogs: 2) In Control Panel , Click on "Program and Features".. www.office.com/setup Blogs: 3) Choose your Office installation 4) Click on Uninstall and follow the steps.| Step 3: Run System Scan 1) Press Win + R www.office.com/setup Blogs 2) Type "cmd" and Press Enter. www.office.com/setup Blogs 3) Type "sfc /scannow" and press enter. www.office.com/setup Blogs Note: Step 3:Check Sysytem Files For Error 1) Press Windows + R www.office.com/setup Blogs 2) Type "Cleanmgr" and Press Enter. www.office.com/setup Blogs 3) Select the OS Drive and Press OK. 4) Click on "Clean up System Files" Step 4: Try the installation again. In most case Office 2016 error 1706 should be resolved by now, if however the problem still persists please get your system checked by an expert.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Office www.office.com/setup Blogs: Windows 10 has grabbed the attention of social media and customers alike more so because it is a crucial operating system for Microsoft after the debacle of Windows 8 and a not so great reception for Windows 8.1. But, Microsoft has another major product on their cards now, Office, which enhances the Windows productivity of five major products into a system of applications. With Office 2016, Microsoft plans to build from scratch, a mobile and cloud first approach which is customer centric and doesn't only focus on web compared to Office 365 and 2013. Office 2016 has recently been launched on September 22, 2015. www.office.com/setup The Cost factor The first and the most important thing we look at during major software products and updates is the price tag that comes along with it as there are so multiple updates for major software and it is not feasible to go through each and every revision. The all new Office 2016 suite is free for customers on mobile and tablets (conditions apply) and pretty cheap at $145 for "Office Home & Student 2016" and the RRP version of the same is priced at $165, along with subscription version of the suite (Office 365 Personal) at about $70 per year. Built for collaboration Office suite has changed how businesses operate and more focus is laid on connectivity and collaboration of projects. So, the latest offering from Microsoft, Office 2016 is emphasized on collaborations among spread out team members who may never work in the same office environment, but easily enhance productivity by accomplishing a major task that took a week to get it done. Touch centric user interface If you have used the Office for Windows 10, it is quite evident that Microsoft has given a universal app style for the apps and a touch friendly UI which is more familiar to the iPad owners. For instance, in Word, Microsoft lays focus on providing touch friendly controls for ease of

www.office.com/setup Blogs: I've been installing Office 2013 on a lot of computers lately and I've ran into quite a few problems along the way. From annoying messages like "Sorry we ran into a problem" and "Something went wrong" to slow downloads, hanging at certain percentages during the install, it's been typical Microsoft problems all along the way. If you've been trying to install Office 2013 on Windows 8 or Windows 7 and you're running into issues, I'm going to try and give you as many possible solutions as I could find. If you run into a different issue not mentioned here, feel free to post a comment and let us know. It's also worth noting that you can't install Office 2013 on Windows Vista or Windows XP, it's just not possible. You'll get an error message like: This is not a valid Win32 application or We are sorry, you couldn't install your Office product because you don't have a modern Windows operating system. You need Microsoft windows 7 (or newer) to install this product or The procedure entry point K32GetProcessImageFileNameW could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNERL32.dll Now let's talk about some of the problems that can occur when installing Office 2013 on Windows 7 and Windows 8. FIX "SOMETHING WENT WRONG" OFFICE 2013 You might get this error if a first installation stalled and you ended up starting a second installation over the first one. You might also get this error if the computer restarted for some reason before the installation was finished. In this case, you should go to the Control Panel, click on Microsoft Office 2013 or Microsoft Office 365 and click on Change. Office 2013 change - www.office.com/setup Blogs Depending on your version of Office installed, you should either see an option called Repair or Online Repair. If you have Office 365, you'll see Online Repair and then the Repair option. Office 2013 repair - www.office.com/setup Blogs If, for some reason, this fails or

www.office.com/setup Blogs: ML Gomes is getting a new PC running Windows 8, and wants to know which version of Microsoft Office is best for her needs Microsoft office - www.office.com/setup Blogs Which version of Microsoft Office is best with Windows 8? Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Which version of Microsoft Office should I use on Windows 8? I am buying a new laptop and need to use Outlook. ML Gomes Microsoft usually brings out new versions of Office to match new versions of Windows, and Windows 8 is no exception. The new Office 2013 is designed to work with Windows 8, and both have a similar modern styling that puts the emphasis on your content rather than Microsoft's software. Also, both are designed to work with cloud (online) services, particularly Microsoft's SkyDrive. However, other things have changed now that Microsoft is not a software company but a cloud-based "devices and services company". As chief executive Steve Ballmer said last year, this "impacts how we run the company, how we develop new experiences, and how we take products to market for both consumers and businesses." Under the old system, you could buy a copy of Microsoft Office on DVD, and use it without an internet connection. Under the new system, you buy a Product Key, which is 25 alphanumeric characters long. Entering the code online enables you to download your copy of Office, or activate a free trial version pre-installed on your new PC. FREE OFFICE WEB APPS The good news is that under the new system, most home users don't need to pay anything for Microsoft Office: they can use the free, cloud-based service in the form of Microsoft Office web apps. Sign up for an email address at Outlook.com, and you get free web-based email, a contacts book (People), a calendar, and 7GB of online storage in SkyDrive. (Outlook.com has replaced Hotmail, so you can use a Hotmail address, if you already have one.) Log on, click SkyDrive, and you can create and edit files in the four main Of

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Andy Wolber shows you how to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents stored on Google Drive from your desktop or mobile device. Office and Drive - www.office.com/setup Many organizations that rely on Google Apps also use Microsoft Office applications. Mass conversion of highly formatted documents, complex spreadsheets, or animated presentations may not always be practical. As a result, people still open and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents after a move to Google Apps. Microsoft Office files, however, no longer need to be stored on your local computer, server, or even on MIcrosoft's OneDrive. Google Drive stores Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files much like any file server. And Google encrypts the files when you upload them to Drive, and it stores the files in an encrypted state, too. Google also offers several ways to edit Microsoft Office files stored on Google Drive. Edit capabilities vary by operating system. Here's a look at the options as of August 2015. EDIT WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE The most full-featured way to edit a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file stored on Google Drive is with Microsoft Office, of course. People who use Office on Windows may open Office files from Google Drive with a plug-in. Simply install the Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office, and Google Drive will display as a file storage location in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (Figure A). From within your Office app, open a file on Google Drive, make your changes, then save the file back to Google Drive. Figure A Figure A - www.office.com/setup OPEN MICROSOFT OFFICE FILES STORED ON GOOGLE DRIVE WITH A GOOGLE-CREATED PLUG-IN. You can also open an Office file stored on Google Drive from your Chrome browser-on either Windows or a Mac. First, install the Google Drive app for your system. Next, start Chrome and browse to your file on Google Drive (http://drive.google.com). Right-click (or, [Ctrl]+click) on a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documen

Part of the thrill of working for the Office Division is the opportunity to tackle thorny business issues on behalf of our customers while providing them with a road map for the future. That may be why an interesting article caught my attention this week. In it, the author examined some of the investments Microsoft is making in the unified communications space. While I didn't agree with all of the conclusions it contained, the article certainly underscored the interest in communications and collaboration and how to make people more productive. Communicating and collaborating with others is really at the heart of what we do every day. Whether at work or at home, people have the need to make meaningful connections with one another. Compounding that need are the realities of the world we live in where instant access to information is expected, friends and coworkers are scattered across geographies and many adults are juggling multiple mobile devices. At Microsoft, we believe technology isn't the problem to these complexities, it's the answer. We're committed to providing capabilities that help people make sense of it all and to do so in a way that is intuitive, barrier free and agnostic to the devices on which we rely. We're incredibly proud of the fact that our long term-term vision for communications and collaboration not only marries the best of the cloud and the desktop, it's a holistic approach that spans "from the living room to the boardroom" placing people at the center of everything we do. Our communication and collaboration vision comes to life utilizing client and cloud assets, including Lync, Skype, Yammer, Outlook and SharePoint. These tools are enabling enterprise social capabilities, HD video conferencing and document collaboration as part of a highly secured, reliable and extensible platform. At the risk of looking geeky, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Lync and it's comforting to know I'm not alone. More than 90% of

Today's post was written by Howard Kourik, Director, Information Systems, San Diego County Regional Airport Authority The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority manages operations at one of Southern California's busiest regional airports, San Diego International. We were created to serve the public and have a mandate from the state of California to address the local area's long-term transportation needs. While we are a public entity, we function very much like any other business. In fact, we don't accept any tax dollars to support our operations. Instead, we rely on landing fees, the rent we receive from tenants, and a percentage of the profits from concessions-the restaurants, newsstands, and other shops located in the airport-to fund our growth. And like every business, we're constantly looking for ways to bring down our costs by operating more efficiently. We evaluated a lot of technologies to help us trim costs, but we selected Office 365 because it not only saves money, it gives us what we need to meet future IT demands. With our eyes on current and future needs, we did some modeling to gauge regional demand for our airport services over the next decade. It quickly became clear that we needed to add runways, terminals, and other "bricks and mortar" facilities, and upgrade our network infrastructure. Still, the only way we could budget for that expansion was to reduce or eliminate some of our fixed capital costs. I knew that one important way we could trim expenses was by taking a closer look at the technology we use and how we manage it. Our email system offered a prime example of how, by rethinking the way we deliver core IT services, we could cut down on operational "drag" and potentially save our IT team lots of time. Historically, we've managed our email in a clustered environment across four physical servers. So, we were not only worrying about the cost of the servers; we had to invest in mirroring software and an antivirus so

As governments strive to become more responsive and transparent, it's important for them to make public information easily accessible to citizens. At the same time, it's critical that they protect confidential data. A key reason why governments choose Microsoft Office 365 is Microsoft's leadership in the industry when it comes to privacy, security, and compliance practices. In short, governments know they can trust Microsoft to help protect their data. So how does Microsoft demonstrate leadership and why exactly do governments trust Office 365 to help protect their data? Here are four reasons: We respect your privacy. Google is under criticism for its privacy practices. Office 365 does not build advertising products out of customer data, unlike other companies. Nor do we scan your email or documents for building analytics, data mining, or advertising, or to improve the service. What's more, you own your data. Office 365 customer data belongs to the customer. Customers can remove their data whenever they choose. Office 365 is independently verified. Office 365 is compliant with many world-class industry standards, and it is verified by third parties. For example, Office 365 is the first major business productivity public cloud service to have implemented the rigorous set of physical, logical, process, and management controls defined by ISO 27001, one of the best security benchmarks available in the world. In addition, Office 365 is the first major business productivity public cloud service provider to sign the standard contractual clauses created by the European Union ("EU Model Clauses") with all customers. Office 365 also implements security processes that adhere to the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) required by U.S. federal agencies and to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). With Office 365, you know where your data is located. Office 365 customers know where major Office 365 datacenters are located

In order to stay competitive in today's world, teams need to connect and share with each other more than ever before. On March 28th, we had the pleasure of hosting Rob Koplowitz from Forrester Research and Walton Smith from Booz Allen Hamilton in a live webinar where they discussed why organizations are turning to enterprise social and how they are using it to help their teams work more openly and efficiently. Rob discussed how communication is changing, and how we're accessing and interacting with information in new ways-incredibly, 66% of information workers in North America and Europe already work remotely.* The shift to cloud-based software and platforms is definitely contributing to some of these changes. The old way of building software involved engineers, months of coming up with specs, running Beta programs, and debugging. The time from idea to ship could take years. So the introduction of the cloud-and social-to the Enterprise is enabling companies to innovate and move to market faster than ever before. The cloud provides anytime, anywhere access which is essential to our increasingly mobile work environments; today employees can quickly and easily access a range of business systems, information and expertise from anywhere in the world. Our shift to cloud-based platforms and the introduction of working openly with social are changing the way teams collaborate. Take, for example, Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading provider of management and technology consulting services. The company has over 26,000 employees worldwide, with over 71% of their employees working on-site with customers, which often limits their access to company resources.** But in order to provide the best service to their clients, consultants need to be able to quickly and easily access information and expertise. Booz Allen recently integrated Yammer as a social layer across business tools because the cloud-based platform enables consultants world-wide to collaborate virtually. When o

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Today marks the general availability of Office 2016 for Windows, a suite of desktop applications that together with new mobile and web apps pushes Microsoft's new vision for PC-based productivity. Office 2016 is available immediately to Office 365 subscribers, as well as to individuals who would prefer to buy the software in standalone form. "We see Office 2016 as being just as important as the first release of Office," Microsoft group program manager Shawn Villaron told me in a briefing last week. "In the early days, Office was about bringing really important tools together to empower the individual for personal productivity. That was the way people wanted to work at that time. And for 20 to 30 years, Office fit right in. Today, things are changing. More people collaborate on work as groups and teams, so Office 2016 represents the change from personal productivity to team productivity." And that, really, is Office 2016 in a nutshell. If you're a typical information worker, student, or other person in need of standard productivity tools, Office 2016 of course works fine and represents an obvious and stable evolution from the Office version you're currently using. But the real meat in this release-now and going forward, as Office will of course be updated regularly, like Windows 10-is the designed around this new way of working. Confusing matters somewhat, Office-not Office 2016, but Office generally-is all over the place now. In addition to the classic, full-featured desktop suites on both Windows and Mac, Microsoft has high-quality Office Online web apps, mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows/Windows phones-and Office 365-specific solutions that are often available as web apps but are sometimes just integrated into the desktop applications. This ain't your father's Office anymore. Office everywhere: Microsoft Office is available on virtually any device you care to use. - www.office.com/setup Office eve

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Missing a key security signal could mean not catching a breach, but the number of security signals is increasing exponentially. It's becoming impossible to manually prioritize them. That's why Office 365 applies intelligence to help you proactively manage risk and ward off threats. Today, we're pleased to introduce several new capabilities in Office 365 that help you manage risk and stay ahead of threats: Office 365 Secure Score-A new security analytics tool that applies a score to Office 365 customers' current Office 365 security configuration. Office 365 Threat Intelligence Private Preview-Service that leverages billions of data points from the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph to provide actionable insights to the global threat landscape and help customers stay ahead of cyber threats. Office 365 Threat Intelligence is now in private preview, with general availability planned for later this quarter. Office 365 Advanced Data Governance Preview-Applies machine learning to help customers find and retain the most important data to them while eliminating redundant, obsolete and trivial data that could cause risk if compromised. Office 365 Advanced Data Governance is now in preview, with general availability planned for later this quarter. KNOW YOUR OFFICE 365 SECURE SCORE Do you know how you'd be rated if someone were to evaluate your security configuration? To give you better visibility into your Office 365 security configuration and the security features available to you, we're pleased to introduce Secure Score-a new security analytics tool. Secure Score helps you understand your current Office 365 security configuration and shows you how implementing additional controls can further enhance your security and reduce risk.* Here's how it works: Secure Score Summary-Displays your Secure Score and provides access to view your Score Analyzer. Your Secure Score, the numerator, is the sum of the points associated wi

www.office.com/setup Blogs: In today's post we take a look at the key admin setup steps of a Office 365 license. If you'd like the complete guide to Office 365 setup, you can download it here. This guide will walk you through the necessary steps to establish your Office 365 account, add your end users, and jumpstart collaboration. In today's post, we'll be discussing the setup process for you and your employee's Office 365 accounts from start to finish. What to Expect During The Setup Process Office 365 The process begins with the purchase of Office 365 licenses for all of your employees. There are different plans available, with options that include the full Microsoft Office downloadable suite of tools, and those that only provide the online, or web-based versions of the Office suite. There are plans available for an individual, small business, and for the enterprise. Each license type includes options for online and offline apps, email, and productivity solutions. Purchasing a New Office 365 Plan Once your plan is selected, you as the Administrator will walk through the purchasing process, allowing you to associate your new plan with any existing subscriptions, as well as associate your account to your personal Microsoft ID. If you've ever attended a Microsoft event or webinar, or purchased software from the Microsoft store, you probably already have a personal Microsoft ID. You can connect this to your new Office 365 account, or create a new Microsoft ID. The signup process has four simple steps: Provide your contact details Create a new ID (or associate your account with an existing ID) Review your order Place your order Once purchased, you will receive a welcome letter as the new Office 365 Administrator with details on signing onto the platform and getting started. If the license was purchased on your behalf, your profile will be added to the company account, and you will likewise receive a welcome email with your User ID and a temporary passw

www.office.com/setup Blogs: In today's post we take a look at the key admin setup steps of a Office 365 license. If you'd like the complete guide to Office 365 setup, you can download it here. This guide will walk you through the necessary steps to establish your Office 365 account, add your end users, and jumpstart collaboration. In today's post, we'll be discussing the setup process for you and your employee's Office 365 accounts from start to finish. What to Expect During The Setup Process Office 365 The process begins with the purchase of Office 365 licenses for all of your employees. There are different plans available, with options that include the full Microsoft Office downloadable suite of tools, and those that only provide the online, or web-based versions of the Office suite. There are plans available for an individual, small business, and for the enterprise. Each license type includes options for online and offline apps, email, and productivity solutions. Purchasing a New Office 365 Plan Once your plan is selected, you as the Administrator will walk through the purchasing process, allowing you to associate your new plan with any existing subscriptions, as well as associate your account to your personal Microsoft ID. If you've ever attended a Microsoft event or webinar, or purchased software from the Microsoft store, you probably already have a personal Microsoft ID. You can connect this to your new Office 365 account, or create a new Microsoft ID. The signup process has four simple steps: Provide your contact details Create a new ID (or associate your account with an existing ID) Review your order Place your order Once purchased, you will receive a welcome letter as the new Office 365 Administrator with details on signing onto the platform and getting started. If the license was purchased on your behalf, your profile will be added to the company account, and you will likewise receive a welcome email with your User ID and a temporary passw

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Access is a database creation and management program. To understand Access, you must first understand databases. In this lesson, you will learn about databases and how they are used. You will familiarize yourself with the differences between data management in Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel. Finally, you will get a look ahead at the rest of the Access tutorial. Watch the video below to learn more about databases in Access. WHAT IS A DATABASE? A database is a collection of data that is stored in a computer system. Databases allow their users to enter, access, and analyze their data quickly and easily. They're such a useful tool that you see them all the time. Ever waited while a doctor's receptionist entered your personal information into a computer, or watched a store employee use a computer to see whether an item was in stock? If so, then you've seen a database in action. The easiest way to understand a database is to think of it as a collection of lists. Think about one of the databases we mentioned above: the database of patient information at a doctor's office. What lists are contained in a database like this? To start with, there's a list of patients' names. Then there's a list of past appointments, a list with medical history for each patient, a list of contact information, and so on. This is true of all databases, from the simplest to the most complex. For instance, if you like to bake you might decide to keep a database containing the types of cookies you know how to make and the friends you give these cookies to. This is one of the simplest databases imaginable. It contains two lists: a list of your friends, and a list of cookies. An illustration of two lists - www.office.com/setup However, if you were a professional baker, you would have many more lists to keep track of: a list of customers, a list of products sold, a list of prices, a list of orders, and so on.

Windows 10 has grabbed the attention of social media and customers alike more so because it is a crucial operating system for Microsoft after the debacle of Windows 8 and a not so great reception for Windows 8.1. But, Microsoft has another major product on their cards now, Office, which enhances the Windows productivity of five major products into a system of applications. With Office 2016, Microsoft plans to build from scratch, a mobile and cloud first approach which is customer centric and doesn't only focus on web compared to Office 365 and 2013. Office 2016 has recently been launched on September 22, 2015. www.office.com/setup The Cost factor The first and the most important thing we look at during major software products and updates is the price tag that comes along with it as there are so multiple updates for major software and it is not feasible to go through each and every revision. The all new Office 2016 suite is free for customers on mobile and tablets (conditions apply) and pretty cheap at $145 for "Office Home & Student 2016" and the RRP version of the same is priced at $165, along with subscription version of the suite (Office 365 Personal) at about $70 per year.

KidSource Online is a parent focused article site to help the parents with helping their child to do better in school. The articles focus on specific topics, skills, and lessons for all grades. This site is easily accessable with nurmerous links for specific areas, to saftey, to forums, to other websites and related areas. There is also a rating system to all of the articles in reference to how well and how much they help.

Today I am going to talk about Microsoft sway in Office 365. Sway is a presentation program and its part of Microsoft since from August 2015. Sway allows users who have a Microsoft account those can combine text and media to create a presentable website, it is very easy to do this. We can copy or open the information from local system and make use for social sites and others. Sway is online and browser based where PowerPoint is primarily as a desktop with Office 365 we can get some limited features.

Yes! It has everything. Even if you are trying to setup a list of what to buy and what to do. You will never need any other software but Microsoft Office. It is great to have it on your computer. We recommend Microsoft Office to every person with any device with a display. Lets see why. IT WILL EASE YOUR WORK. Literally, it will check spellings, it will suggest you what you should be writing. Your grammar if its worst, well Office has some Brit English Grammar inside of its gut. Yeah thats write. Microsoft Office has been coming with the Spell check and Grammar corrections since it was rolled out. It has the best typing management system around the globe.

A teacher would never be satisfied with her performance if she discovered that the entire back row of her classroom was unable to hear her lecture. In the world of cloud services for business, we see things the same way. With Office 365, every user counts! Google has a different approach. It starts counting downtime only after at least 5 percent of users are affected. Imagine if 100 of your 2,000 users had no access to email. Would you, as an IT professional, be satisfied with your performance? Would your business hold you accountable for your performance? The answers to these questions are clear. Calculating downtime only after 5 percent of your users cannot access email, as Google does, makes it more difficult for you to assess impact to user productivity. Google's approach doesn't help your business with meaningful performance metrics. With Office 365, every affected customer and every service counts when we calculate downtime. Downtime means the total minutes in a month during which service is unavailable, excluding scheduled downtime. For services like email, there is no scheduled downtime, an experience that our many Exchange Server customers have long been accustomed to-system maintenance while they continue to be productive in their Outlook inboxes. In addition to the way it calculates downtime, Google also combines consumer and commercial service availability when reporting the availability of Gmail. This means if you are considering Google Apps for Business, you cannot get accurate information regarding the availability of the commercial service that you need. On the other hand, Microsoft's approach to calculating downtime, which includes every user minute, helps you understand whether your users' productivity is being impacted by downtime of email. Google takes a "use at your risk" approach around Google+, Hangout and Google Voice. These services are not part of Google Apps for Business and are excluded from the SLA. Excluding these serv