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Microsoft TechNet was a Microsoft web portal and web service for IT professionals. It included a library containing documentation and technical resources for Microsoft products, a learning center providing online training, discussion forums , an evaluation center for downloading trialware , blogs for Microsoft employees and a wiki .

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56-481: TechNet originally provided a software subscription service similar to Office 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud that allowed subscribers to download Microsoft software under a software as service license for private use. On July 1, 2013, it was announced that Microsoft would be discontinuing the TechNet subscription service, with the purchase and renewal of subscriptions to be closed by August 31, 2013. TechNet also included

112-525: A CSV file , or set up for single sign-on with a local Active Directory using Active Directory Federation Services . More advanced setup and features requires the use of PowerShell scripts. Microsoft 365 offers subscription plans aimed at different needs and market segments, providing different sets of features at different price points. Microsoft has also offered Office 365 subscriptions to students of institutions who have licensed Office software for their faculty. There are two separate backends for

168-560: A software as a service basis, including Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint, Microsoft Dictate ( speech recognition ), and Office on the web . Through SharePoint's OneDrive for Business functionality (formerly known as SharePoint MySites and SkyDrive Pro, and distinct from the consumer-oriented OneDrive service ), each user also receives 1 TB of online storage. Certain plans also include unlimited personal cloud storage per user. Microsoft 365 services can be configured through an online portal; users can be added manually, imported from

224-572: A Yammer app for SharePoint and single sign-on) to be introduced in July 2013. On July 8, 2013, Microsoft unveiled Power BI , a suite of business intelligence and self-serve data mining tools for Office 365, to be released later in the year. Power BI is primarily incorporated into Excel, allowing users to use the Power Query tool to create spreadsheets and graphs using public and private data , and also perform geovisualization with Bing Maps data using

280-415: A broad pool of first-hand experiences, with less publishing friction than traditional mechanisms. TechNet content on related topics is organized into separate sections, such as: Social bookmarking on TechNet Social was first launched in 2008, built on a new web platform that has user-tagging and feeds at its core. The goal of the social bookmarking application is to provide a method whereby members of

336-515: A computer. For example, Commodore Plus/4 model of computer contained in ROM for applications of productivity software. Productivity software is one of the reasons people use personal computers . An office suite is a bundle of productivity software (a software suite ) intended to be used by office workers . The components are generally distributed together, have a consistent user interface and usually can interact with each other, sometimes in ways that

392-522: A new Microsoft Office app that integrates Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, replacing the previous, separate apps for each. Microsoft Outlook for mobile is derived from the apps Acompli and Sunrise Calendar , which were acquired by Microsoft and discontinued. Some Microsoft 365 online services are usable without a subscription, but with limitations such as advertising and lower storage limits. Business and enterprise-oriented plans for Microsoft/Office 365 offer access to cloud-hosted server platforms on

448-452: A new license, and do not receive feature updates). In July 2017, Microsoft introduced a second brand of subscription services for the enterprise market known as Microsoft 365, combining Office 365 with Windows 10 Enterprise volume licenses and other cloud-based security and device management products. On April 21, 2020, Office 365 was rebranded as Microsoft 365, to emphasize the service's current inclusion of products and services beyond

504-681: A public beta in April 2011, and reaching general availability on June 28, 2011, with a launch aimed originally at corporate users. Facing growing competition from Google 's similar service Google Workspace , Microsoft designed the Office 365 platform to "bring together" its existing online services (such as the Business Productivity Online Suite ) into "an always-up-to-date cloud service" incorporating Exchange Server (for e-mail), SharePoint (for internal social networking, collaboration, and

560-458: A public web site), and Lync (for communication, VoIP , and conferencing). Plans were initially launched for small business and enterprises; the small business plan offered Exchange e-mail, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, web hosting via SharePoint, and the Web App with the enterprise plan also adding per-user licenses for the Office 2010 Professional Plus software and 24/7 phone support. Following

616-717: A subscription-based software as a service platform for the corporate market, including hosted services such as Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync Server , and Office on the web. Some plans also included licenses for the Microsoft Office 2010 software. Upon the release of Office 2013 , Microsoft began to promote the service as the primary distribution model for the Microsoft Office suite, adding consumer-focused plans integrating with services such as OneDrive and Skype , and emphasizing ongoing feature updates (as opposed to non-subscription licenses , where new versions require purchase of

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672-502: A web-based TechNet Magazine which has been discontinued since October 2013. Past issues are still available for reading. As of January 2020, TechNet redirects to Microsoft Docs . TechNet's primary web presence was a collection of sites for IT professionals providing information, documentation, and discussion authored both by Microsoft and by the community at large. Later emphasis on and incorporation of applications such as forums, blogs, library annotations, and social bookmarking changed

728-451: A wide variety of IT professional topics. TechNet Forums were migrated during 2008 to an all-new platform that provided new features designed to improve efficiency such as inline preview of threads, AJAX filtering, and a slide-up post editor. TechNet had their own blogging platform, which hosted the blogs of Microsoft employees. In May 2020, the MSDN and TechNet blogs were closed and the content

784-514: Is aimed at mainstream consumers, especially those who want to install Office on multiple computers. A University plan was introduced, targeted at post-secondary students. With these new offerings, Microsoft began to offer prepaid Office 365 subscriptions through retail outlets alongside the normal, perpetually licensed editions of Office 2013 (which are only licensed for use on one computer, and do not receive feature updates). On March 19, 2013, Microsoft detailed its plans to provide integration with

840-412: Is now wider than that. Office suites , which brought word processing , spreadsheet , and relational database programs to the desktop in the 1980s, are the core example of productivity software. They revolutionized the office with the magnitude of the productivity increase they brought as compared with the pre-1980s office environments of typewriters, paper filing, and handwritten lists and ledgers. In

896-502: Is sold via Microsoft and its cloud services reseller network. On March 30, 2020, Microsoft announced that the consumer plans of Office 365 would be rebranded as "Microsoft 365" (a brand also used by Microsoft for an enterprise subscription bundle of Windows, Office 365, and security services) on April 21, 2020, succeeding existing consumer plans of Office 365. It is a superset of the existing Office 365 products and benefits, positioned towards "life", productivity, and families, including

952-646: The Microsoft Office suite, 1 TB of additional OneDrive storage and access to OneDrive Personal Vault, and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month. Under the brand, Microsoft will also add access to its collaboration platform Teams (which will also add additional features designed around family use), and a premium tier of Microsoft Family Safety . Microsoft also announced plans to offer trial offers of third-party services for Microsoft 365 subscribers, with companies such as Adobe ( Creative Cloud Photography), Blinkist , CreativeLive, Experian , and Headspace having partnered. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family succeeded

1008-590: The Patriot Act . In Finland , FICORA has warned Office 365 users of phishing incidents and break-ins that have caused losses of millions of euros. In September 2019, NCSC-FI (National Cyber Security Centre of Finland) created a detailed guide on how to protect Microsoft Office 365 against phishing attempts and any data breaches. In July 2019, the German state of Hesse outlawed the use of Office 365 in educational institutions, citing privacy risks. In December 2020,

1064-541: The US Department of Commerce was breached via Office 365. The attackers were able to access staff emails for several months. A July 1, 2021 cybersecurity advisory from British ( NCSC ) and American ( NSA , FBI , CISA ) security agencies warned of a GRU brute-force campaign from mid-2019 to the present (July 2021) that focused a "significant amount" of activity on Microsoft Office 365 cloud services. On November 10, 2023, IT news portal Heise online disclosed in

1120-562: The operating system would not normally allow. The earliest office suite for personal computers was MicroPro International 's StarBurst in the early 1980s, comprising the WordStar word processor, the CalcStar spreadsheet and the DataStar database software. Other suites arose in the 1980s, and Microsoft Office came to dominate the market in the 1990s, a position it retains as of 2024 . During

1176-400: The "Home Premium" plan to "Home,” and added a new "Personal" plan for single users. In June 2014, the amount of OneDrive storage offered to Office 365 subscribers was increased to 1 terabyte from 20 GB. On October 27, 2014, Microsoft announced "unlimited" OneDrive storage for Office 365 subscribers. However, due to abuse and a general reduction in storage options implemented by Microsoft,

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1232-507: The "Microsoft 365" brand. It continues to reside on the domain name office365.com , whereas personal (non-education/enterprise) accounts are on live.com . However, Microsoft reversed this stance with the release of an Office 2024 preview build in November 2023. Microsoft first announced Office 365 in October 2010, beginning with a private beta with various organizations, leading into

1288-539: The "TechNet subscription". The annual subscription provided trial-use-only software that was unlocked only so long as a subscription was maintained. The Standard subscription provided access to most of their software except specific enterprise-oriented software and included one collection of Microsoft E-learning. The Professional subscription was more expensive and provided access to all their software and included two free professional support calls and two collections of Microsoft E-learning. On July 1, 2013, Microsoft announced

1344-580: The 1 TB cap was reinstated in November 2015. In June 2016, Microsoft made Planner available for general release. It is considered to be a competitor to Trello and to other agile team collaboration cloud services. In April 2017, Microsoft announced that with the ending of mainstream support for Office 2016 on October 13, 2020, access to OneDrive for Business and Office 365-hosted servers for Skype for Business will become unavailable to those who are not using Office 365 ProPlus or Office perpetual in mainstream support. In July 2019, Microsoft announced that

1400-440: The 1990s, office suite products gained popularity by offering bundles of applications that, when bought as part of a suite, effectively discounted the individual applications, with four or five applications being bundled for the price of two applications bought separately. When faced with such potential savings, customers could be "tempted by the suite, rather than the value of a particular product", and by 1994 more than 60 percent of

1456-459: The IT professional community can: The initial release of the application provides standard features for the genre, including a bookmarklet and import capabilities. The TechNet web site is also starting to incorporate feeds of social bookmarks from experts and the community, displayed alongside feeds from relevant bloggers. TechNet also provided access to Microsoft software for evaluation purposes through

1512-477: The Microsoft 365 subscription. They are installed using a "click-to-run" system which allows users to begin using the applications almost instantaneously, while files are downloaded in the background . Updates to the software are installed automatically, covering both security and feature updates. These applications were one of the core components of the initial Office 365 service. If the user's subscription lapses,

1568-688: The Microsoft Office brand, in favor of branding all products under the Microsoft 365 name. This change took effect on Office.com in November 2022, followed by the Office mobile apps in January 2023. The Microsoft Office brand will still be used for legacy products, including subscription products still carrying the "Office 365" name since the previous Microsoft 365 rebranding, and the "on-premises"/perpetually licensed Microsoft Office 2021 . The Microsoft 365 desktop applications (formerly marketed as Microsoft Office ) are primarily used on personal computers running Microsoft Windows , and are distributed as part of

1624-470: The Office 2013 desktop applications, and the service as a whole for being suitable in small business environments, while still offering "powerful" options for use in larger companies (such as data loss protection and the ability to integrate with a local Active Directory instance). However, the service was severely criticized for how it handled its 2013 update for existing users, and its lack of integration with services such as Skype and Viva Engage . In

1680-436: The Office 365 Personal and Home subscriptions, with no change in pricing. Office 365 for small- and medium-sized businesses was also renamed Microsoft 365, with Office 365 Business and ProPlus becoming "Microsoft 365 Apps for business" and "Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise", Office 365 Business Essentials becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Basic", and Office 365 Business Premium becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Standard" (with

1736-678: The Office 365 platform was now compliant with the ISO/IEC 27001 security standards, the European Union 's Data Protection Directive (through the signing of model clauses ), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act for health care environments in the United States. At the same time, Microsoft also unveiled a new "Trust Center" portal, containing further information on its privacy policies and security practices for

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1792-566: The Power Map tool (previously available as a beta plug-in known as GeoFlow). Users will also be able to access and publish reports, and perform natural language queries on data. As a limited-time offer for certain markets (but notably excluding the US), Microsoft also offered a free one-year Xbox Live Gold subscription with any purchase of an Office 365 Home Premium or University subscription, until September 28, 2013. From April 15, 2014, Microsoft renamed

1848-575: The TechNet Library was a source of technical information for IT professionals and advanced users. The technical content was freely available on the web and on CDs and DVDs. The discs were published monthly and contained the complete Microsoft Knowledge Base, service packs , security updates , resource kits , technical training, operations and deployment guides, white papers , and case studies . In January 2014, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Security Bulletins and Advisories would be merged into

1904-416: The TechNet Library. In 2016, Microsoft introduced the new technical documentation platform, Microsoft Docs , intended as a replacement of TechNet and MSDN libraries. For the next two years Microsoft migrated their materials into Microsoft Docs. Now most of the TechNet Library pages redirect to the corresponding Microsoft Docs pages. TechNet Forums are the web-based forums used by the community to discuss

1960-411: The United States, some 78% of "middle-skill" occupations (those that call for more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree ) now require the use of productivity software. In the 2010s, productivity software had become even more consumerized than it already was, as computing became ever more integrated into daily personal life. Productivity software traditionally runs directly on

2016-634: The applications enter a read-only mode where editing functionality is disabled. Full functionality is restored once a new subscription is purchased and activated. Although there are still "on-premises" or "perpetual" releases of Office released on a three-year cycle, these versions do not receive new features or access to new cloud-based services as they are released on Microsoft 365. All of these applications, excluding Access and Publisher , are also available on macOS . Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are available as mobile and web app , usable for free with limitations, although they do not contain all of

2072-437: The article "Microsoft lays hands on login data: Beware of the new Outlook", that "if you try out the new Outlook, you risk transferring your IMAP and SMTP credentials of mail accounts and all your emails to Microsoft servers." TechRadar gave the 2013 update of Office 365 a 4.5 out of 5, praising its administration interfaces for being accessible to users with any level of expertise, the seamless integration of OneDrive Pro into

2128-413: The core Microsoft Office software family (including cloud-based productivity tools and artificial intelligence features). Most products that were called Office 365 were renamed as Microsoft 365 on the same day. In October 2022, Microsoft announced that it would discontinue the "Microsoft Office" brand by January 2023, with most of its products and online productivity services being marketed primarily under

2184-552: The enterprise social networking platform Yammer (which they had acquired in 2012) for Office 365, such as the ability to use a single sign-on between the two services, shared feeds and document aggregation, and the ability to entirely replace the SharePoint news feed and social functionality with Yammer. The ability to provide a link to a Yammer network from an Office 365 portal was introduced in June 2013, with heavier integration (such as

2240-483: The existing Microsoft 365 Business product becoming "Microsoft 365 Business Premium"). The Office 365 brand remains in use for its enterprise, education, healthcare, and governmental plans. Microsoft stated that "over the last several years, our cloud productivity offering has grown well beyond what people traditionally think of as 'Office'", citing examples such as Forms , Planner , Stream , and Teams. On October 13, 2022, Microsoft announced that it would be phasing out

2296-653: The fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, Office 365 revenue had exceeded that of conventional license sales of Microsoft Office software for the first time. Productivity software Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software ) is application software used for producing information (such as documents , presentations , worksheets , databases , charts , graphs , digital paintings , electronic music and digital video ). Its names arose from it increasing productivity , especially of individual office workers , from typists to knowledge workers , although its scope

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2352-443: The functionality as the desktop versions. The mobile apps were originally limited to Office 365 subscribers, but basic editing and document creation has since been made free for personal use. An active Microsoft 365 subscription is still required to unlock certain advanced editing features, use the apps on devices with screens larger than 10.1 inches, or to use the apps for commercial purposes. In February 2020, Microsoft introduced

2408-566: The hosted Skype for Business Online service would be discontinued on July 31, 2021, with users being redirected to the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform as its replacement. Since September 2019, Skype for Business Online is no longer offered to new subscribers. In October 2017, the existing Outlook.com Premium service was discontinued and folded exclusively into Office 365, with all Personal and Family subscribers subsequently being upgraded to 50 GB of storage. The "Microsoft 365" brand

2464-498: The latter sought to assemble its own suite product. The dominant suite vendors, Microsoft and Lotus, downplayed competition and innovation concerns, claiming that users were still able to exercise choice and that "user-driven development" was guiding the evolution of office suites. Another view was that component-based software would eventually emerge, focusing development on more specialised components used by productivity software, empowering "a plethora of third-party developers", and that

2520-467: The nature of the TechNet site from a one-way information service to an open dialog between Microsoft and the IT professional community. The main website and most of its constituent applications below were available in 12 languages, generating traffic from 11.5 million per month and host approx. 11 million documents. Similar to the MSDN Library which contained technical information for software developers,

2576-514: The official launch of the service, Business Productivity Online Suite customers were given 12 months to migrate from BPOS to the Office 365 platform. With the release of Office 2013 , an updated version of the Office 365 platform was launched on February 27, 2013, expanding Office 365 to include new plans aimed at different types of businesses, along with new plans aimed at general consumers, including benefits tailored towards Microsoft consumer services such as OneDrive (whose integration with Office

2632-532: The products: Aimed at mainstream consumers, both plans offer access to Microsoft Office applications ( Word , Excel , PowerPoint , Outlook , Publisher , and Access ) for home/non-commercial use on one computer ( Windows , macOS , and mobile devices), with access to additional online-based services and premium creative content, 1 TB of OneDrive storage with Advanced Security, 60 minutes of Skype international calls per month (subject to area), and partner offers. In December 2011, Microsoft announced that

2688-661: The retirement of the TechNet Subscriptions service to focus on growing its free offerings, including evaluation resources through the TechNet Evaluation Center, expert-led learning through the Microsoft Virtual Academy, and community-moderated technical support through the TechNet Forums to better meet the needs of the growing IT professional community. The last day to purchase a TechNet Subscription

2744-481: The sales of Microsoft Word and around 70 percent of the sales of Microsoft Excel were as part of sales of Microsoft Office. Such considerations had an impact on vendors of individual applications, often smaller companies, raising concerns that office suites were "stifling innovation", and even established vendors such as Borland and WordPerfect were having to adapt to the suite phenomenon, Borland ultimately deciding to sell its Quattro Pro spreadsheet to WordPerfect as

2800-565: The service. In May 2012, Microsoft announced that Office 365 was now compliant with the Federal Information Security Management Act : compliance with the act would now allow Office 365 to be used by U.S. government agencies. In spite of claiming to comply with European data protection standards, and in spite of existing Safe Harbor agreements, Microsoft has admitted that it will not refrain from handing over data stored on its European servers to US authorities under

2856-587: The time it was discontinued, TechNet Magazine had a print circulation of about 100,000 readers in the US. Office 365 Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software , collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft . It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com , OneDrive , Microsoft Teams , programs formerly marketed under the name Microsoft Office (including applications such as Word , Excel , PowerPoint , and Outlook on Microsoft Windows , macOS , mobile devices , and on

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2912-400: The web ), enterprise products and services associated with these products such as Exchange Server , SharePoint , and Viva Engage . Microsoft 365 also covers subscription plans encompassing these products, including those that include subscription-based licenses to desktop and mobile software, and hosted email and intranet services. The branding Office 365 was introduced in 2010 to refer to

2968-426: Was August 31, 2013. Subscribers could activate purchased subscriptions through September 30, 2013. Microsoft announced an extended 90-days plan to help existing subscribers get used to the new situation. Founded in 2005, TechNet Magazine is a discontinued monthly print magazine that provided IT professionals, working with Microsoft technologies, information about planning, operating, and optimizing their systems. At

3024-443: Was a major feature of the 2013 suite). The server components were updated to their respective 2013 versions, and Microsoft expanded the Office 365 service with new plans, such as Small Business Premium, Midsize Premium, and Pro Plus. A new Office 365 Home Premium plan aimed at home users offers access to the Office 2013 suite for up to five computers, along with expanded OneDrive storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls monthly. The plan

3080-467: Was archived at Microsoft Docs. The TechNet Wiki is a technical resource inspired by Misplaced Pages. Wiki is a community site and does not offer official documentation from Microsoft. Anyone who joins the community can contribute new topics, edit and enhance existing topics, provide comments and "friend" other registered users. The goals of the wiki included providing broader and more in-depth solutions content (how-to, procedural, troubleshooting, deployment), from

3136-499: Was first introduced at Microsoft Inspire in July 2017 as an enterprise subscription product, succeeding the "Secure Productive Enterprise" services released in 2016, and combining Windows 10 Enterprise with Office 365 Business Premium, and the Enterprise Mobility + Security suite including Advanced Threat Analytics, Azure Active Directory , Azure Information Protection, Cloud App Security and Microsoft Intune . Microsoft 365

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