Enhancements to cloud-enabled Microsoft Office 365 offered by Sprint will make it even easier for SMBs to collaborate and communicate from virtually anywhere they are, whether in the office or on the go.
The variety of plans available from Sprint has expanded to offer more choice and flexibility, and several new a la carte options also are available. As with previous plans, businesses enjoy predictable monthly costs with no up-front infrastructure expenses, pay-as-you-go plans and savings by bundling all of the necessary tools, all with a single bill and single point of contact.
According to a press release issued by Sprint this afternoon, the new plans include the following:
· Sprint Professional Plus with Office 365 – This new package provides all the cloud-based components of the Office 365 Professional plan AND the downloadable version of Office 2013 (called Office 365 ProPlus). Office 365 ProPlus includes the most popular version of desktop applications, such as Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
· Sprint Preferred with Office 365 – Combines the most commonly used Active Directory and IT policy management capabilities of the Enterprise plan with Office 365 ProPlus.
· 20 stand-alone or add-on products for Office 365 are now available from Sprint. These products provide optimum solutions to address customer needs, including Exchange Online Plan 1 and 2 and new Kiosk plans.
Sprint said it also plans to soon offer Sprint Audio Conferencing for Lync Online, powered by InterCall, which provides businesses an enhanced Lync conferencing experience to drive closer collaboration with internal and external teams. Options include adding 10, 25 or 50 dial-in attendees by phone with existing Lync Online conferencing capabilities. Benefits also include Carefree Cloud assistance through the entire Sprint Audio Conferencing setup process, including synchronization with Lync Online for immediate productivity gain.
“We’ve seen strong demand for our Office 365 plans, and our unique Carefree Cloud support clearly is breaking down barriers to cloud adoption by helping to simplify the purchase and onboarding process for businesses,” John Dupree, Sprint’s senior vice president of business sales, said in a press release. “We felt it was critical to build on this successful model by expanding our offers in order to meet the distinct needs of SMBs within a variety of industries and work styles.”
Sprint’s Office 365 cloud migration offering comes at a fitting time, especially since this year’s annual survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan of mobile and wireless decision-makers in North America, revealed that smaller business respondents cite the cost of doing business, post-sale service and support capability, and professional services capabilities as the top factors they consider when selecting potential mobility partners.
Office 365 offered by Sprint includes unique Carefree Cloud “white glove” migration and onboarding assistance, 24x7 support, online resources and a user-friendly portal to manage the services.
Carefree Cloud is available with all Office 365 plans offered by Sprint at no additional charge (the onboarding and migration services portion of Carefree Cloud is provided at no additional charge when used within the first 90 days of purchase) to all employees within a business so companies have the flexibility to receive the level of migration and ongoing support they need.
