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www.office.com/setup Blogs: Having come around to the idea that it needed different versions of Office for different kind of users, Microsoft introduced lightweight versions of Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote that are neither as pricey or as feature laden as the main versions included in Office. iPad users were the first to get their hands on this new take on Office. With Windows 10, the free Microsoft Office Mobile apps have arrived for some Windows users. 10 Things to Love About Windows 10 (7) - www.office.com/setup Blogs Read: Windows 10 Review - A Love Affair Here's how to get that free Microsoft Office in Windows 10, and what you need to know about it why it's possible for some to take advantage and not possible for others. HOW TO GET FREE MICROSOFT OFFICE IN WINDOWS 10: WHAT IS IT? Microsoft Office is wildly successful. Everyday millions of users all open it to get work done. Millions of documents are written in Microsoft Word. Millions of budgets and sales breakdowns are created in Microsoft Excel. Everyone has created a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation at some point in their life. Screenshot (236) - www.office.com/setup Blogs Windows and Microsoft Office are synonymous. Because the two are often used together and both made by Microsoft, many assume that one comes included with the other. That's never been true. Windows device makers often included shortcuts to trials for Microsoft Office with new PCs. Some even bundled it with their PCs, passing the cost on to buyers. Microsoft Office costs $149 if purchased outright or $6.99 a month through Microsoft's Office 365 subscription service. Office Mobile is what Microsoft collectively calls the free Microsoft Office apps that are now available. Word Mobile lets Windows 10 users view documents. Excel Mobile focuses on spreadsheets. PowerPoint Mobile lets users look at presentations. Outlook is separated into to apps, Outlook Calendar and Outlook Mail. Outlook Mail and Outlook Calendar are a

It's been a very busy year for SkyDrive and we'd like to thank all of you for helping us improve the service through your feedback, tweets, Facebook posts, and comments. The service continues to grow: since October 2012 when Windows 8 launched, 50 million more people have started using SkyDrive, helping us reach an important milestone - over 250 million people are now using SkyDrive as the new place to save their files. In just the past few months we've made SkyDrive the default save location for the new Office, updated the SkyDrive app for iOS, and made substantial performance improvements to SkyDrive uploading. Recently, we also announced that Microsoft accounts have grown to 700 million, that we've improved the security of our service with things like two-step verification, and that we now have Extended Validation Certificates integrated on SkyDrive.com. And a few days ago, our friends over at Outlook.com announced that they're rolling out a new feature that allows you to insert anything from your SkyDrive directly into an email message. We continue to push forward to a world where all your stuff is in SkyDrive, so you can always have it with you.

Mike McLean is a Senior Program Manager on the Microsoft Project team. Along with the general availability of Project Online in Office 365, new scenarios have been enabled for Project Online reporting. We introduced the Project Online OData feed to help you access your data using Excel 2013. During Public Preview, you may have noticed that any attempt to refresh the Excel workbooks in Office 365 generated errors. Now you can refresh Excel workbooks in Excel Web App that consume Project Online OData feeds. When Excel workbooks are refreshed in Office 365, the BI Azure Service retrieves updated data from Project Online and recalculates the internal workbook model. If the workbook has data connections pointing to Project Online OData feeds, the BI Azure Service must have permission to the SharePoint Online tenant to retrieve that data. These instructions document how to grant the BI Azure Service access to your SharePoint Online tenant. Log on to Project Online. Add the following to the end of your Project Web App URL: /_layouts/15/appinv.aspxwww.office.com/setup For example, if your Project Web App URL is http://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/pwa, type this URL in the address bar of your browser: http://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/pwa/_layouts/15/appinv.aspx www.office.com/setup In the App ID field, copy and paste 00000009-0000-0000-c000-000000000000, and then click Lookup. (Note: In the string of digits in Step 3, there are 7 zeroes before the 9, and the last set of zeros is 12 zeroes in a row.)www.office.com/setup In the Permission Request XML field, copy and paste the following XML:

Headquartered in Bad Homburg, Germany, Fresenius Medical Care is one of the world's leading providers of products and services for individuals undergoing dialysis treatments. The company runs a network of more than 3,000 dialysis clinics around the world and treats more than 250,000 patients each year. The company had been using Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 since 2010. In April 2012, the Fresenius Medical Care Global Manufacturing Operations adopted SharePoint 2013 with a long-term vision to migrate all SharePoint 2010 dashboards and use SharePoint 2013 as the central collaboration and social system.

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

When we launched the preview of Outlook.com, our goal was to build the best email service in the world, capable of scaling to over a billion active customers. When Outlook.com came out of preview, it was already the fastest growing email service thanks to your support. The last two months have seen the release of a new, modern Outlook.com calendar, a refreshed Outlook.com app for Android devices, two-factor authentication for your account, new international domains for people around the world, and the release of a preview of Skype calling in Outlook.com. Today, we're excited to announce that we've completed upgrading all Hotmail customers to Outlook.com. Coupled with the growing organic excitement for Outlook.com, this has pushed us to over 400 million active Outlook.com accounts, including 125 million that are accessing email, calendar and contacts on a mobile device using Exchange ActiveSync. We're also pleased to announce that we're adding two new features to Outlook.com: SMTP send, so it's easier to send mail from different email addresses, and deeper integration with SkyDrive.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft today detailed the new features and improvements that it delivered to Office 365 users this month. Key among them are new Excel co-authoring capabilities, Microsoft Teams, and new OneNote inking and accessibility updates. "Office 365 provides the broadest and deepest toolkit for collaboration between individuals, teams and entire organizations," Microsoft corporate vice president Kirk Koenigsbauer explains. Here's what's new in March. CO-AUTHORING IN EXCEL 2016 FOR WINDOWS Following similar functionality in Word and PowerPoint, Microsoft has enabled co-authoring capabilities in Excel for the Windows desktop (Excel 2016). (This feature is also available in Excel Online and Excel Mobile on Android, iOS, and Windows 10; Excel for Mac support is coming soon.) "This allows you to know who else is working with you in a spreadsheet, see where they're working and view changes automatically within seconds," Mr. Koenigsbauer says. Co-authoring in Excel 2016 for Windows is rolling out for Office 365 subscribers in Office Insider Fast, Microsoft says. Co-authoring in Excel for iOS is currently available for Office Insider. The feature is generally available in Excel Mobile for Android and Windows, and in Excel Online. AUTOSAVE Microsoft is working to expand the availability of AutoSave beyond mobile versions of Office: Office 365 subscribers in Office Insider Fast now have access to AutoSave in Word, Excel and PowerPoint on Windows desktop, for files stored in SharePoint Online, OneDrive and OneDrive for Business. "With AutoSave, you can stop worrying about hitting the Save button, whether you're working alone or with others," Mr. Koenigsbauer explains. MICROSOFT TEAMS Microsoft delivered its long-awaited Slack alternative, called Microsoft Teams, earlier this month to all Office 365 commercial customers. And last week, it shipped Microsoft Teams to all Office 365 Education subscribers as well. "We are thri

Based in Chicago, Illinois, United is one of the largest airlines in the world. To improve enterprise content management (ECM), United wanted to build communities around the products and services it delivers to customers. The airline initially deployed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and subsequently migrated to SharePoint Server 2010, which United developed into an enterprise platform for ECM and e-discovery, co-locating approximately 1 terabyte of content for the enterprise. In 2012, the airline deployed SharePoint Server 2013 for a variety of projects-including a service catalog that 87,000 employees rely on to search for and order products from the IT department. By using SharePoint Server 2013, United has also simplified content management-the amount of time required to enter a new item into the catalog has plummeted from two months to a few hours.

Today's post was written by Nick Portello, Network Manager, Steve Moore Chevrolet. Read more Office 365 customer stories here. Office 365 Customer Steve Moore Chevrolet_Nick PortelloWhen I joined Steve Moore Chevrolet as the sole IT staffer six months ago, the dealership was in dire need of new technology. Employees coped with aging PCs, an outdated POP3 email service, a poor mobility experience, data loss, and no collaboration tools. Then I heard about Microsoft Office 365, which gives you the latest version of Microsoft Office, plus a suite of cloud-based communication and collaboration tools that solved all our problems. Unlike Google Apps, the UI was familiar to our employees and Microsoft offered a flexible subscription-based payment option, which is ideal for our fluctuating workforce. Now that our documents are stored in Microsoft SharePoint Online and SkyDrive Pro, we have easy access to collaboration tools with robust security. I no longer worry about falling out of compliance with Chevrolet auditors, losing important financial data, or having to pay fines that could reach $250,000. I can also find data on-demand for Chevrolet auditors and use my mobile device to look up information, which saves about 40 percent of every day-I'm no longer running between my computer and the sales, service, and administration departments. I can focus on what I really need to do. Thanks to Office 365, we are all able to get on with our work! Learn more about Steve Moore Chevrolet and Office 365 by watching the video below and reading the case study.

Today's post was written by Jacob Guttman, IT Manager, Menchies It's hard to believe it when you look at our rapid growth, but Menchies is still a very young company. We were founded in 2007 with a single store in Valley Village, California. Now, we have more than 300 franchise locations around the world. Maintaining connections between Menchies headquarters, the franchise community, and our guests is critical to our success. In the past, we used hosted services for email, collaboration, and document management. And we used a separate, Java-based application for instant messaging. One of the most persistent challenges I faced was trying to support our company's growth with a set of applications that weren't tightly linked together and that didn't fit the day-to-day work needs of our employees. An increasing number of our employees want to be able to access email and other applications on a range of different devices, including their smartphone or tablet. Ultimately, they want to be able to connect with colleagues and seamlessly move information between applications without having to think much about the underlying technology. When we started looking at moving to a new productivity and collaboration solution, the major factors influencing our decision were ease of use, anywhere access, simplified administration, and cost-effective scalability. As we took a closer look at Microsoft Office 365, it was the obvious choice. And, with help from our partner Cal Net Technology Group, we were able to make the switch to Office 365 quickly and easily. With Office 365, we get online access to all of the capabilities we need-email, calendaring, document management, and unified communications-all rolled into one solution. And it automatically works together with the Microsoft Office tools that our employees use every day. One great example of how Office 365 supports the business needs of Menchies and fits the way our people like to work is through our use of Micro

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: WHICH VERSION OF MICROSOFT OFFICE IS BEST FOR ME? www.office.com/setup Blogs: Office 365 and Office 2016 share a lot of similarities, yet deciding between the two involves a lot of factors. Office 365 is a subscription-based service that currently uses Office 2016 apps, but when the next version of Office is released, users will get that as part of their subscription. Office 2016 is a buy-once app suite that brings you the Office 2016 apps as they are, without any available updates in the future. If you want to upgrade to the latest version of Office without paying for a subscription, you'll have to pay full price for the new version - there's no discounted upgrade option. These are only a couple differences between the two products. Looking to invest in Office? We break down the differences between the two products to help you decide which is better for personal and home use. See at Microsoft Store Quick-reference table Apps and pricing Multiple devices Connectivity Support Storage Conclusion QUICK-REFERENCE TABLE Category Office 365 Home Office 365 Personal Office Home & Student 2016 Office Home & Business 2016 Office Professional 2016 Price $99.99 /year $9.99 /month $69.99 /year $6.99 /month $149.99 $229.99 $399.99 Users Up to 5 1 1 1 1 Apps Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Outlook Publisher Access Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Outlook Publisher Access Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Outlook Word Excel PowerPoint OneNote Outlook Publisher Access Devices 5 PCs or Macs 5 tablets 5 phones 1 PC or Mac 1 tablet 1 phone 1 PC 1 PC 1 PC Skype minutes 60 per month for each user 60 None None None OneDrive storage 1TB each for five users 1TB None None None APPS AND PRICING Office apps on the go. - www.office.com/setup Office 365 is a subscription-based service. If you choose to pay on a yearly basis, you essentially get a discount that works out to two free months per year. If you choose to pay on a monthly b

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,

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: YES. Microsoft has some FREE help with the NEW Office 365. One of the places that I send people to first is the Ignite Online training center. How to configure federated identity sign-in model for Office 365 OFFICE 365 GUIDES Exploring the Office 365 Administration Center - In this guide, you will become familiar with the Office 365 Administration Center and learn how to perform key administration tasks. Office 365 Overview for IT Administrators - See how the new Office 365 Administration Center provides improved ease-of-management for IT professionals. There is also a great three part series on how to setup Identity Management. 1. Installing and Configuring Active Directory Federation Services - Learn how to prepare for and install AD FS, which is a preliminary step for the Office 365 federation and hybrid scenarios. 2. Configuring Active Directory Federation Services and Verifying Federation - In this guide, you will learn how to add and verify federated domains in Office 365. 3. Installing and Configuring Active Directory Synchronization - Learn how to install and configure Active Directory Synchronization in Office 365, which is a preliminary step for the Office 365 federation and hybrid scenarios.

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: FROM USING ONENOTE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT TO DISCOVERING HIDDEN FEATURES IN WORD, THERE ARE TONS OF WAYS YOU CAN GET MORE OUT OF OFFICE 365. HERE'S A LOOK BACK AT THIS YEAR'S MOST POPULAR TIPS. @MENTIONS IN OUTLOOK www.office.com/setup Blogs: This is an excerpt from our post Get Someone's Attention in Outlook with @Mentions. Using the @ symbol is a quick way to draw people's attention to important things. Microsoft has rolled this handy feature into Outlook, so here's how you can use it to get people's attention in emails and also save time. (Note: This feature is only available in Outlook 2016, Outlook 2016 for Mac, Outlook on the web for Office 365 Business, Outlook.com, and Outlook on the web for Exchange Server 2016.) ONENOTE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT This is an excerpt from our post 5 Keys to Using OneNote for Project Management. Instead of investing in costly project management software, how about using a free program like Microsoft OneNote? OneNote digital notebooks are available on all your devices and can be used for a variety of projects. Whether you are planning a wedding, heading up an office presentation, or writing a thesis paper, OneNote bends to your needs. This post focuses on tips for the office, but personal and school projects can be managed with OneNote using many of these same key principles. HIDDEN FEATURES IN WORD This is an excerpt from our post 3 Hidden & Useful Tricks in Microsoft Word. There are lots of great hidden features tucked away in Microsoft Word that you probably don't know about. From activating research tools, to changing the page color of documents to reduce eye strain, to easily capturing screenshots, here are three tricks that you will enjoy. WORD ONLINE VS. WORD DESKTOP This is an excerpt from our post 3 Things You Can Do With Word Online That You Can't Do With Word Desktop. Word Online isn't just a simple online word processor. To get the full value of the product

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Office 2016 for Mac is here, so we bring you everything you need to know about the new version of Office for Mac 2016, including Office 365, UK pricing, new features and more. OFFICE FOR MAC 2016 FIRST LAUNCHED AS PART OF OFFICE 365 IN JULY OF 2015, BUT MAC USERS WANTING TO BUY A COPY OUTRIGHT, RATHER THAN SUBSCRIBE, HAD TO WAIT FOR MICROSOFT TO LAUNCH THE BOXED VERSION. THAT FINALLY HAPPENED IN SEPTEMBER 2015, WHEN THOSE MAC USERS GOT THEIR WISH AND OFFICE 2016 FOR MAC BECAME AVAILABLE FOR £119.99 UPFRONT. HERE, WE TALK YOU THROUGH THE FEATURES IN OFFICE FOR MAC 2016, AND HELP YOU DECIDE WHETHER TO SUBSCRIBE TO OFFICE 365 OR BUY A COPY OUTRIGHT. PLUS, WE SHARE OFFICE FOR MAC 2016 UK PRICING FOR EACH VERSION. A number of new features for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar have been added as of February 2017, these are discussed here. Don't expect Microsoft Office for Mac 2017 anytime soon (or at all, for that matter). There was a five year gap between this current version of Office for Mac and its predecessor, Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. However, those with an Office 365 account will get regular, automatic updates since it is an online subscription. If you buy Office outright as a one-time software download, you won't get these benefits, so something to bear in mind. MICROSOFT OFFICE FOR MAC 2016 UK PRICE: HOW MUCH DOES OFFICE FOR MAC 2016 COST? Office Home & Student 2016 for Mac costs £119.99 ($149.99) and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It's available to buy from Microsoft UK here or Microsoft US here. Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac costs £229.99 ($229.99) and includes Outlook as well as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. It's available to buy from Microsoft UK here or Microsoft US here. These versions are only available for one Mac. To install on more than one Mac Microsoft appears to be pushing users towards the 365 subscription model. If you buy a copy outright, you will only be able to install the copy on

www.office.com/setup Blogs: MS Office 2013 was the Microsoft Office version released in 2012 and was more popular than the Office 2010 version. Later Microsoft released Office 365 and the latest Microsoft Office 2016 for the Windows users. Even though, these tools either come pre-installed with Windows OS or the users have to purchase them online, Office has been the most popular Office suite until now. There is no other Office suite available as of now which can take the crown from Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office 2007 - 2010 - 2013 and the Office 2016 didn't have any major errors, but a minor yet frustrating Office error is "Something went wrong error" in Office 2013 and 2016. The "Something went wrong" error is common among Microsoft Office 2013 and 2016 users, but the fix for them may vary depending on the problem. Therefore, in today's post, I will show you how to fix something went wrong errors in Office 2013 - 2016. Fix Something Went Wrong Errors in Office 2013 - 2016 - 365 in Windows 10 - www.office.com/setup FIX SOMETHING WENT WRONG ERRORS IN OFFICE 2013/2016 Note: This guide is written for Windows 10 users. But, you can try these fixes on Windows 7, 8 and Windows 8.1 running machines as well. As I said earlier; the "Something went wrong error in Office 2013" may occur due to several reasons and at a different point. Some users face the "something went wrong error" while installing Office 2013 or the Office 2016, but some may come across this error while restarting Microsoft Office. There are other few reasons and fixes for them that I will discuss later in the article. Advertisement So, if you are facing the "Something went wrong error" in Office 2013 or Office 2016 then make sure you read the error description before proceeding with the fixes. Click on any of these something went wrong error link to jump to the fix section. Fix something went Wrong Error 1058-13 Fix Something Went Wrong Error While Installing Office

Today's post was written by Nick Portello, Network Manager, Steve Moore Chevrolet. Read more Office 365 customer stories here. Office 365 Customer Steve Moore Chevrolet_Nick PortelloWhen I joined Steve Moore Chevrolet as the sole IT staffer six months ago, the dealership was in dire need of new technology. Employees coped with aging PCs, an outdated POP3 email service, a poor mobility experience, data loss, and no collaboration tools. Then I heard about Microsoft Office 365, which gives you the latest version of Microsoft Office, plus a suite of cloud-based communication and collaboration tools that solved all our problems. Unlike Google Apps, the UI was familiar to our employees and Microsoft offered a flexible subscription-based payment option, which is ideal for our fluctuating workforce. Now that our documents are stored in Microsoft SharePoint Online and SkyDrive Pro, we have easy access to collaboration tools with robust security. I no longer worry about falling out of compliance with Chevrolet auditors, losing important financial data, or having to pay fines that could reach $250,000. I can also find data on-demand for Chevrolet auditors and use my mobile device to look up information, which saves about 40 percent of every day-I'm no longer running between my computer and the sales, service, and administration departments. I can focus on what I really need to do. Thanks to Office 365, we are all able to get on with our work! Learn more about Steve Moore Chevrolet and Office 365 by watching the video below and reading the case study.

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.

When we launched the preview of Outlook.com, our goal was to build the best email service in the world, capable of scaling to over a billion active customers. When Outlook.com came out of preview, it was already the fastest growing email service thanks to your support. The last two months have seen the release of a new, modern Outlook.com calendar, a refreshed Outlook.com app for Android devices, two-factor authentication for your account, new international domains for people around the world, and the release of a preview of Skype calling in Outlook.com. Today, we're excited to announce that we've completed upgrading all Hotmail customers to Outlook.com. Coupled with the growing organic excitement for Outlook.com, this has pushed us to over 400 million active Outlook.com accounts, including 125 million that are accessing email, calendar and contacts on a mobile device using Exchange ActiveSync. We're also pleased to announce that we're adding two new features to Outlook.com: SMTP send, so it's easier to send mail from different email addresses, and deeper integration with SkyDrive.