Microsoft Preps Customers for Office 365 Service Upgrade

Office 365 Small Business and Enterprise customers are getting upgraded to the new versions of the services this year

If you were an existing user of Office 365 before the recent and massive upgrades, as I was, you may have questions about when your accounts will be updated to the new versions of the services and, when applicable, the Office desktop applications. To help customers understand and schedule this transition, Microsoft has created Office 365 Service Upgrade Center portals for both small businesses and enterprises.

Here are links to the two portals:

Office 365 Service Upgrade Center for Small Business

Office 365 Service Upgrade Center for Enterprise

You should already have received an email from Microsoft—or soon will—explaining the update. “The Office 365 service upgrade coming in 2013 is bringing exciting new capabilities to your organization,” the email reads. “You will get broader support for mobile phones and tablets, a unified user experience in the browser, social networking, and more.”

According to Microsoft, users will be able to access all of their Exchange and SharePoint data during the transition and Small Business customers in particular won’t need to do anything to prepare for the update. Enterprise customers can postpone the service upgrade for a minimum of two months if they need more time to prepare.

If you’re concerned about the upgrade or have questions, be sure to check out the Service Upgrade Resources and Welcome Kit as well.

Discuss this Article 6

michaelljones
on Mar 11, 2013

Nice. But am I the only one who's wondering why the video is posted in Quicktime?????!!!!!

Waethorn
on Mar 11, 2013

It's not - it's just MPEG-4 with a generic MPEG container file. Blame QuickTime for hijacking your video settings.

michaelljones
on Mar 11, 2013

yeah, except WinRT doesn't have QuickTime, and it won't play on my tablet. Chrome played it in QT of all things. IE 9 on my desktop wouldn't render it either.

chimera13
on Mar 11, 2013

Paul, where does it tell you WHEN??? I can't any mention of time line. I haven't received an email or found any mention online for the time it will take before they get to me.

azoko
on Mar 13, 2013

My upgrade just completed. Went flawlessly.
really impressed given the complex components involved (exchange and SharePoint)
good communication.
happened when it said it would.
no issues (actually fixed a win 8 phone Office Hub problem I had)

Mike O'Neill
on Mar 14, 2013

Re the videos, if you're having trouble viewing them, go here: http://vimeopro.com/office365serviceupgrade/office-365-service-upgrade.

Azoko, I'm very glad to hear it went well!

Chimera, there is a lot of complexity in this, and we're moving as fast as we responsibly can. I can't tell you exactly when, but I doubt you'll have to wait long. In the meantime, if you have access to Office Subscription, you can install the new version of Office now. No need to wait for the upgrade.

Paul, thanks so much for helping share the info! Just want to point out that Small Business customers can postpone as well.

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