Microsoft's cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 service launched in June 2011. Since then there have been some good notices for Office 365, including being voted the best cloud app of 2011 by CRN. There's also been some issues along the way, the main one being an extended outage of Office 365 in August. Microsoft later compensated its customers with a 25 percent credit for that month.
Today, the official Office 365 blog site announced that Microsoft is giving its enterprise customers another nice financial break. Microsoft's Kirk Koenigsbauer states, "I'm thrilled to announce that we're lowering the prices of most of our Office 365 for enterprise plans by up to 20 (percent). These changes are effective today at Office365.com for new and renewing direct customers."
Koenigsbauer says the new price cut are being put in due to the cost of running the Office 365 service becoming more and more efficient.
In addition to the business price cut, students and educators are getting some Office 365 love as well. Koenigbauer says that the A2 level of service for Office 365 will be made available for free for the faculty and staff of educational institutions along with students sometime this summer. The A2 level includes being able to access the "core capacities" of the Office 365 versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync along with the Office Web Applications. Exchange Online and Lync Online are already available for educational institutions to access.