[kelton]

I'm very interested in the Office cloud 365 and the Playbook.

Being a novice, I don't understand quite what BES means (or implies), but when I read articles about Office 365, they also mention that it is associated with RIMS "enterprise" service.

I currently am on the BIS type service.

Does this mean that BIS users will be unable access Office 365?.... is there some additional fee to be hooked up with BES?

If Office 365 doesn't pan out, I'm hoping that Docs to Go will work... and integrate easily with Dropbox. In particular, I'm hoping that Docs to Go will be easier to use on that big Playbook screen ...with plenty of instant access icons and menu items.

[Boots4283]

As far as I know BES will not be a requirement for Office365. You might have to download an app on your playbook to get it to connect to the cloud but logically I don't see how BES would be a requirement.

[Kanuck34]

Hello,

Through my work, I have a good deal of familiarity with Microsoft's cloud offerings. The only requirement that I can see would be a web browser which is compatible (most major ones work). Having said that, I have not tested it with the Playbook (mine has not arrived yet), nor have a tested from my BB Torch (I am a Office365 beta tester). Assuming the browser is compatible, I see no issues for BIS users.

The only question would be availability of BES via the Office 365 suite. Although there have been recent announcments from RIM and Microsoft reagarding BES in the cloud, it is my understanding that it will not be ready for the June 30th Office 365 launch. Honestly, I would not expect to see BES in the cloud with Office 365 until the fall.

Kanuck 34

[allsportsfan]

Hello,

Through my work, I have a good deal of familiarity with Microsoft's cloud offerings. The only requirement that I can see would be a web browser which is compatible (most major ones work). Having said that, I have not tested it with the Playbook (mine has not arrived yet), nor have a tested from my BB Torch (I am a Office365 beta tester). Assuming the browser is compatible, I see no issues for BIS users.

The only question would be availability of BES via the Office 365 suite. Although there have been recent announcments from RIM and Microsoft reagarding BES in the cloud, it is my understanding that it will not be ready for the June 30th Office 365 launch. Honestly, I would not expect to see BES in the cloud with Office 365 until the fall.

Kanuck 34

Frustraing is the word for Office365. I was a beta tester and ended up buying their monthly service but the email sending is intermittent at best. It keeps crapping out with an error message 99% of the time "You don't have permission to send messages from this mailbox." You try to get support from the community on your playbook it opens up another tab and most of the time when you click on a link it gives you another error, "Bad URL" and doesn't send you to the link in the prior screen.

I'll have to look more closely because I have the Office365 version for professionals with only 1 user, but there is no way I am putting this on my 9900 so it can screw up my email system. I'm not happy with Microsoft for putting up such a crappy product, I just hope it gets better really soon.

Another thing it doesn't do is that if you download a .csv file onto the playbook you can't upload it using office365 because it can't recognize the type of file. CSV files have been around for what 15 years? geez

This will make playbook owners get frustrated and possibly complain its the PB but really I'm just saying to people its MS and its crappy SAAS software for MS Office.

[diegonei]

There are different services BES and 365.

BIS is BlackBerry solution for the end user, while BES is the robust enterprise solution that has features most of us don't even dream of. You may need to pay additional fees to your carrier to enable BES on your device. I can't tell.

Office 365 is a MS service and no you don't need BES (which is a BlackBerry service to use it). For 365 to work on the PlayBook, I guess all you need is a weblink and an account.

Now, if you want your BlackBerry to access enterprise private, sensitive data, you may be required to talk to the IT Admin to hook you to the BES Server IF your company sports one.

PB's Docs2Go does not integrate with anything as of now (maybe we get a surprise with OS2). It is a simple suit, but gets (most of) the work done.