14 DAY TRIAL // Just days after it opened its Cloud platform to customers in additional countries around the world, Microsoft has expanded the global availability of its hosted communications and collaboration solutions. While Windows Azure is now available on a total of 41 markets, the latest global expansion of BPOS (Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite) means that the offering can now be accessed from no less than 39 countries and regions. Customers that have previously been keeping track of the commercial availability of BPOS know that the hosted communications and collaboration solutions from the Redmond company are live on an additional 17 new markets.
For customers looking to take advantage of Microsoft Online Services, the Microsoft Online Customer Portal is now localized in 18 languages, no less than 13 of which were added on April 14th, 2010. According to Josh Topal, from the Microsoft BPOS team, BPOS is localized in up to 45 languages.
“This is our second major global expansion; the first being in March 2009. BPOS is now commercially available in the following countries and regions: Czech Republic, Cyprus, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Luxembourg, Poland and Romania. In addition, the following countries and regions will launch BPOS in their local markets later this month: Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Trinidad & Tobago. Other countries and regions where BPOS is available today include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and United States,” Topal stated.
As far as the support for the new Microsoft Online Customer Portal languages go, the experience is bound to have been kicked up a notch for customers in: Brazil (Portuguese), China (Chinese Traditional), the Czech Republic (Czech), Denmark (Danish), the Nederlands (Dutch), Greece (Greek), Finland (Finnish), Hungary (Hungarian), Italy (Italian), Norway (Norwegian), Poland (Polish), Romania (Romanian) and Sweden (Swedish).
Microsoft has also made what it referred to as a key step toward delivering on its vision of Voice in the Cloud. In this regard, Topal revealed that customers using BPOS Dedicated (BPOS-D) would be able to take advantage of voice in the cloud capabilities offered via Office Communications Online. For the time being, this feature is available exclusively to BPOS customers in the United States.
“US-based BPOS Dedicated customers can now enjoy a more complete unified communications (UC) experience in the cloud with Office Communications Online. Optimized for highly mobile information workers, the new voice capabilities enable people to make and receive phone calls anywhere using their PC and any broadband connection,” Topal stated.