UAE. Microsoft Corp. today announced the commercial launch of Microsoft Office 365, the company’s next-generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes, in the Middle East and Africa region.

Previously available on a trial basis in markets across the Middle East and Africa, Office 365 is now commercially available in 16 countries across the region. The cloud solution will also be available with local pricing in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.  Leading regional service providers, will bring the service to their customers. These leading providers will each integrate Office 365 with its other offerings and market the service to millions of small and midsize business customers worldwide.

Office 365 brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in an always-up-to-date service, at a predictable monthly cost. The service was introduced in limited beta last year with enthusiastic response, particularly among small and midsize businesses.

Over a few months, more than 10,000 organizations, many of which were small and midsize businesses, signed up and began testing Office 365, creating one of Microsoft’s largest global beta programs for businesses.

“Today, we are evolving from the information age to the collaboration age, where the ability to take action on information will set successful businesses apart from the rest,” said Yasir Khokhar, Microsoft Office Business Group Lead at Microsoft . “Today’s launch of Office 365 will accelerate that evolution by delivering enterprise-grade collaboration for everyone.”

Moving to the cloud with Office 365 doesn’t require a business to change the way it works, because the service is based on familiar productivity tools people know and trust, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and more. Employees get new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device or mobile phone, and businesses get the reliability, security and IT controls they need in the cloud, even without a dedicated  IT staff.

With Office 365 for small businesses, professionals and small businesses can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and an external website in just 15 minutes, for a monthly fee. These tools put email, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, video conferencing, web conferencing and more at everyone’s fingertips.

Office 365 for enterprises has an array of choices for midsize and large businesses, as well as government organizations, and includes Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis, for the first time ever.

About Microsoft Gulf
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ:'MSFT') is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft Gulf opened its Dubai-based headquarters in 1991. Microsoft Gulf today oversees Microsoft activities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Yemen.

Microsoft Corporation's address on the World Wide Web is: www.microsoft.com Microsoft Middle East's Web site is www.microsoft.com/middleast.

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