New package to prepare for AEC

Microsoft (Thailand) shows its commitment to supporting Thailand with the launch of Office 365 to help SMEs and universities boost their productivity and competitiveness ahead of the Asean Economic Community.

 

Office 365 for SMEs

Managing director Haresh Khoobchandani said yesterday that the AEC will expose local SMEs to new competition from other Asean SMEs, so to win in the new environment will be crucial for future success. Office 365 provides SMEs with the tools they need to grow, compete and focus on what they do best – serving their customers.

SMEs are the backbone of the economy and key to future success, which is why Microsoft has always had a strong commitment to support local SMEs.

Since the worldwide launch in mid-2011, Office 365 is one of the fastest-growing businesses in Microsoft history. After only 18 months, one in five of Microsoft’s enterprise customers now have the paid service, up from one in seven a year ago.

SMEs using Office 365 have also grown by 150 per cent in the past 12 months. There are 2.65 million registered SMEs in operation, accounting for 37 per cent of gross domestic product and making up 99 per cent of total enterprises.

Microsoft has initiated a global “Get2Modern” campaign to help SMEs migrate from Windows XP and Office 2003 to Windows 8 Pro and Office 365. In Thailand, Microsoft has partnered with the Federation of Thai Industries and the Office of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Promotion in their efforts to promote and support SMEs nationwide.

Office 365 Small Business Premium is the full, rich Office applications in an easy to manage service that doesn’t require IT expertise. It is ideal for companies with up to 10 employees. 

Office 365 Midsize Business is designed specifically to address the needs of midmarket customers. It is best suited for organisations with 11-250 employees who want the power that Office 365 Enterprise delivers but with simplified IT management. This service includes Office 365 ProPlus and provides midsize businesses with the enterprise-quality communication and collaboration tools they want. 

Office 365 is available immediately in English and Thai through office.com and through 2,000 resellers nationwide through Microsoft distributors Synnex (Thailand), The Value Systems and Ingram Micro (Thailand).

The price of Office 365 for Small Business Premium is US$12.50 (Bt392) per user per month.

The price for Office 365 for Midsize Business is $15 per user per month.

 

Office 365 for education

The company has also offered Office 365 to almost 740,000 higher education students and staff in Thailand, with the number to be doubled by the end of this year.

The move to further modernise education through the adoption of cloud computing will help transform universities, ensuring that they play a leading role in the AEC.

Leading academic institutions from each region intending to deploy Office 365 include Burapha University, Chiang Mai University, Chulalongkorn University, Dhurakij Pundit University, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Mahasarakham University, Prince of Songkla University, Rajabhat Mahasarakham University, Rangsit University, Sripatum University, Suan Dusit Rajabhat University and the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.

“We are honoured to partner with Thai education and government institutions to help the country to reach its high potential through transforming its education system. Thailand already has the right infrastructure, a strong economy and a skilled workforce. The adoption of cloud technology to deliver 21st century education to our future workforce plays an important part in making Thailand the education hub in Asean,” Khoobchandani said.

“Providing Office 365 and other cloud services to leading Thai education institutions, free of charge, underlines Microsoft’s longstanding commitment to transforming education. Microsoft has invested $10 billion globally in education in the last five years. Microsoft Word is the No 1 application used by students worldwide, followed by Microsoft’s Skype,” he said.

In Thailand, Microsoft runs a great number of education programmes. For example, Microsoft Thailand has trained 164,000 teachers and 8 million students, giving them access to basic computer skills.

However, 1.2 million students from 44 universities are already using Microsoft cloud services for education through Live@Edu. Through the adoption of Office 365, educators can use the best productivity tools they know to better engage students in learning.

Teachers and students can author, collaborate and share in real-time with instant messaging, email, calendaring and video across multiple devices, including non-Windows operating systems.

Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure runs over 200 online services and cloud offerings, serving over a billion customers and over 20 million businesses in more than 76 markets around the world. 

Microsoft’s extensive cloud portfolio includes familiar consumer-oriented services as Outlook and Bing, and business-oriented services such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Office 365 and Windows Azure.