"Office 365 is the newest Microsoft Cloud service and it brings together all the powerful Microsoft collaboration and productivity tools that are familiar to enterprises across the Kingdom," said Salma Bader, Office product manager, Microsoft Saudi Arabia. "Office 365 will make all these tools available at a predictable monthly cost. It's about using familiar applications that most everyone knows, plus taking applications that in the past were available only to enterprises, and now enabling companies of any size to use them."

The Saudi trial period for Office 365 is so that Microsoft can ensure that the data center covering the Kingdom will deliver the experience promised to customers with minimal latencies. Once the trial is complete, sometime during the first half of 2012, the service will become commercial and a monthly fee will be levied. Currently, all applications are available in English with some applications, such as SharePoint, offered in Arabic. Full Arabization of the service is expected "soon."

There are two different flavors of Office 365. The service for Professionals and Small Businesses goes from one user to 25 users. Then there is a second service level for companies of 25 users and above.

According to Bader, small businesses will be offered a basic package that provides corporate email and shared document services. Other tools would have to be added as required.

Once Office 365 goes into "general availability" it will cost between $10 and $27 per user per month. The $10 service offering includes Exchange, SharePoint and Office applications, with all of these to be used only online in the cloud. By paying $27 per month, certain applications such as Microsoft Office would work both locally, on the user's PC, and as a cloud service.

"Our main targets for Office 365 are small and medium businesses," said Bader. "Many enterprise customers in Saudi Arabia understand the service, but most of them have already invested heavily in on premise services. We feel that small and medium companies are underserved over here and don't have access to high level communication, productivity and collaboration systems. This gives them the opportunity to work with the latest, most powerful tools."

During the Office 365 trial phase in the Kingdom, Microsoft will be coordinating with local telecom partners to ensure that customers are experiencing the service in the way it was intended, with 99 percent availability. With Office 365, customers own all their data, even during the trial period. However, they do need adequate Internet connectivity to reach that data at the Microsoft data center. Data is usually stored at the Microsoft data center nearest to the customer, which for companies in Saudi Arabia is in Ireland. All potential data centers are disclosed when customers sign up for Office 365, so companies can see where their data could be held. It's essential that companies read the contract carefully in regards to Microsoft's handling of customer data, as government laws vary.

Bader believes that one of the best things about Office 365 is that moving to the cloud does not require people to change the way they work. The service is based on the familiar productivity tools people already know. For small and medium businesses, Office 365 could be empowering.

Employees would have new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device, even a mobile phone. Business owners would get the reliability, security features and IT controls they need in the cloud. Since right now Office 365 is free to try, perhaps it's time to see if your company is comfortable embracing the cloud.