News

Office 365 Transitions Start Next Month for Microsoft BPOS Users

• By Kurt Mackie
• 08/16/2011

Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) customers anticipating a move to Office 365 may need to review Microsoft's latest communications.

It turns out that the transition to Office 365 won't exactly be on the customer's terms and timeline. Instead, BPOS customers will face a year-long transition period, starting next month, and they need to start planning for the move now, according to Microsoft.

The details are spelled out in Microsoft Online Services team blog posts by Michael O'Neill. The information is also centrally lodged at Microsoft's Office 365 transition center Web portal. There are a couple of handy documents published too, including a FAQ (Word file) and a "Transition Checklist for Administrators" (Word file), which describes steps to take and a rough timeline.

Office 365 represents Microsoft's 2010-branded server technologies, which are hosted in the Internet cloud by Microsoft or its partners. The BPOS product line is the older hosted Microsoft server technologies. Consequently, some client software won't be up for the transition to Office 365, and IT pros subscribing to BPOS will have the responsibility for making sure that their client software is ready for the move.

The main legacy client software programs that won't work with Office 365 are Office 2003, Office Communicator 2007 R2 with Office Communications Online and Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft explains in its FAQ that those programs won't provide a good user experience because of a rearchitected identity solution in Office 365 -- they were designed to only support locally maintained servers.

Current customers are being discouraged from manual moves to Office 365, such as moving to hosted Exchange Server 2010. Doing so will disable e-mail for a 24-hour period. Instead, Microsoft has a schedule outlined for customers that will stretch from September 2011 to September 2012 in which an automated move will take place over several months' time.

Microsoft's FAQ describes how BPOS customers will typically be notified, which will happen in three stages. The first notice will indicate a "be ready" date, specifying that the transition will happen in a matter of weeks. A second notice from Microsoft will define that period of time for the transition to take place. Lastly, an e-mail will be sent that specifies the transition date.

Microsoft's "Transition Checklist" document provides the following table showing the tasks IT pros need to anticipate.

Microsoft's FAQ indicates that BPOS customers "will not have to migrate any data" with the transition to Office 365. All customers will be moved during the year-long transition period, but it will happen in stages, so customers don't get moved at the same time. There's no option to not move to Office 365.

Microsoft recommends that IT pros upgrade existing computers to ensure that the hardware will support the new client software requirements, as described here. Customers should begin upgrading client software "as soon as it is practicable" except for Lync, where Microsoft advises waiting until October, according to the FAQ (no explanation is provided). The free Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit can be used to inventory client software in an environment.

Another caveat for IT pros is that those tapping the hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server service will be dependent on Research In Motion in terms of availability. The FAQ suggests it could be available for transition in "late 2011 or early 2012."

An Online Desktop Setup program run by IT pros will automatically configure computers to use the new Office 365 service. Even though a Sign-In Application will not be required for Office 365, Microsoft warns in its FAQ: "Please do not uninstall the Sign-In Application until 2 weeks after transition." No explanation is provided on that point.