imageYesterday, we announced the release of Office 365 Home Premium, which is a reinvention of Microsoft’s Office product line for consumers. The new offering includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling — all for US$99.99 for an annual subscription, the equivalent of US$8.34 per month.

In addition to the announcement above, we also shared that Office 365 will be available for business to purchase starting on February 27th and that Office 365 will be available to transact in our Open Volume Licensing programs and Full Package Product (Retail Box) channels beginning on March 1st. If you recall from the Day 1 keynotes at Worldwide Partner Conference 2012 in Toronto (check out at the 11:55 point in the MPN Live Daily Recap session), we announced that Office 365 would be coming to the Open Volume Licensing programs and the reception from the partners was phenomenal.

Based on these announcements yesterday, I wanted to bring you some information and resources to use regarding these to make sure you have the latest on these as you prepare for these releases:

  • Office 365 available for consumers January 29
    • January 29, consumer Office & Office 365 SKUs will be available for purchase. 
    • This includes Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 University, Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, and Office Professional 2013.
  • Office 365 available for businesses on the web February27
    • As part of the Consumer Launch, we will announce Office 365 will be available for purchase on the web on February27.
    • This includes Office 365 Small Business, Office 365 Midsize Business and Office 365 Enterprise SKU families.
  • Office 365 available to transact in Open & FPP channels March 1
    • The Office 365 Midsize Business is available for partners to sell in Open L, Open Value (OV), Open Value Subscription (OVS) pricelists, starting March 1.
    • Starting February 1, the Open pricelists previews will include this new SKU and local pricing by market.
    • Office 365 Small Business Premium is available on the Full Package Product (Retail Box) pricelist on February 1, with the ability to sell to Resellers on February 15. Resellers can begin transacting on March 1.
  • Geo availability
    • Midsize Business Open is not available in Australia, China and Thailand
    • Small Business Premium FPP is not available in Australia, China, Thailand and Japan
  • Partner Readiness
  • Key sales and marketing materials
    • The Office 365 BEST 2.0 Campaign is your location for all the sales and marketing assets you need to sell the new Office in SMB. This includes customer pitch decks, customer ready copy blocks, web banners, discussion guides and more.

This is a very exciting time for Microsoft, our partners, and our customers around the world. Be sure to take some time to go through all of the resources and information now available to you to prepare for the March 1st availability date for you to bring the Office 365 solutions to your customers through the Open Volume Licensing Programs.

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Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and Facebook
Sales Excellence Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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