Along with worldwide commercial availability, Office 365 announces new global customers

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Today, we announced worldwide availability of the new Microsoft Office 365 services for business; the most complete Office cloud service to-date has new features and offerings tailored to meet the needs and budgets of small, medium and large organizations.

Since launching in mid-2011, Office 365 is one of the fastest growing businesses in Microsoft history. We are pleased to welcome new customers the Hamburg Port Authority, Sephora, and Midroc Europe to our growing family. Here's a little more about their stories:

As the largest port in Germany, the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) employs over 1,900 people who manage more than 7,000 hectares of port territory, both by land and sea, ensuring safe navigation of vessels coming in and out of the harbor.  

The winter season in Hamburg is particularly grueling for the HPA, with severe storms often resulting in hazardous surges and increased flooding across the region. It's during these times the ability to stay mobile and communicate in real time is crucial. With Office 365, HPA employees aboard water vessels rely on their tablet devices to measure and track wave size and water levels, and communicate directly with the harbor, responsible for monitoring emergency response. In a situation where every minute counts, the ability to connect in real-time and share critical weather updates are vital. 

HPA is also looking at the ability to reduce the IT labor hours to test, install, and update Office versions by 75 percent with Click-to-Run in Office 365 Pro Plus. And, by reducing this management time, the IT staff can focus their time on more strategic projects.

Sephora is a specialty beauty retailer with more than 1,650 stores within 29 countries in Europe and 115 locations in China. At Sephora, they don't want their employees to work more - they want them to work smarter by staying connected and able to work wherever they are. And they've found that with Office 365.

A major advantage Sephora staff has discovered is being able to access and edit documents with the roaming capabilities in Office 365 Pro Plus. Instead of carrying a laptop to and from the office, employees can access their files from their PC, mobile device or tablet allowing them to work in the office, on the road, or from home.

Midroc Europe, a Sweden-based organization comprised of 15 companies across Europe and South Africa, focuses on property development and management. With expanding operations and employees working remotely, Midroc Europe wanted to provide improved access to email and collaboration tools for their dispersed teams.

After evaluating several options, including Google Apps, they selected Office 365 to provide over 2,600 employees with an integrated communications experience including email, IM, voice and video capabilities in Office 365. They also see the social capabilities in SharePoint Online as yet another way to connect employees and foster learning. Employees who traditionally did not have a company-issued PC will be able to send or read email from their smartphone, and report their hours from a shared PC directly to SharePoint Online.  

We're excited and humbled to work with such a high caliber of businesses that are viewed as leaders in their industry and adopting new ways of leveraging the power of the cloud. We look forward to sharing more with you about how Office 365 is helping customers transform their businesses.

For more information, visit the Microsoft Office Division Press Room.

For a list of Office 365 features available on different phones and tablets, visit http://bit.ly/13hwUzC.

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Windows 8 Advertising Campaign Goes Global

As we enter the final countdown to the global launch of Windows 8, today marks the global unveiling of the Windows 8 advertising campaign going live in 42 countries. With the reimagining of the Windows product experience—marketing is breaking from the past as well. The idea behind the campaign is to be more motivating, more rooted in the product experience – less tell and more show – by connecting in an emotional and culturally relevant way that maps to the breadth of the global reach.

With that in mind, music, the universal language, is at the heart of this campaign, highlighting a variety of indie and up and coming bands across the globe, such as Best Coast in the U.S, Lenka in China and Hogarth in Brazil. Regardless of country or language, the music universally is upbeat, positive and encouraging self-expression and experience. We believe that Windows is an open and inclusive brand—empowering-- and we wanted the music, language and cultural references to represent that spirit.

Advertising Agency, Crispin, Porter and Bogusky were great partners in the U.S., leading the core concept development. In China and Latin America, JWT Brazil and China partnered with us to bring Windows 8 to life with local flavor. Wunderman acted as the hub of localization and distribution of the creative materials.

“We focused on the experiences that new Windows 8 devices will give all of us,” said Rob Reilly, Partner/Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Crispin, Porter and Bogusky. “And we didn’t get too literal. It’s not about landing features and scenarios, it is about themes like sharing and staying connected, working and playing together, and expressing yourself. They are what connect and resonate across cultures in this digital and social age and what is absolutely core to this product.” said Reilly. With this foundation, the agencies then executed to ensure the ads were relevant across cultures.

“We selected music from up and coming bands. We didn’t want to use overly popular songs because we wanted to bring the viewer on a journey of discovery, both through the storytelling and the music that accompanies these stories. Sometimes, as in “Express Yourself,” by Labrinth we found a new take on a classic old song, much like the reinvention of Windows,” said Reilly.

JWT in China was charged with bringing Windows 8 to life in Asian countries such as China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Working with this team, we decided to focus on the idea of the personalization of Windows 8 and how it is uniquely your own.

In Asia, Parkour—urban running-- is incredibly popular and an expression of freedom as well as individualism. It was the perfect expression of Windows,” said Polly Chu, Chief Creative at JWT China.

She goes on to say “In Asia & South East Asia, we are growing our economy at high speed, yet we value our personal lives just as much and want to maintain our lifestyle, so balancing work and play was important. We know we can be productive with PCs, we wanted to focus on how they can be fulfilling too.”

In Latin American, the campaign has a slightly different approach, but still with music playing a central role. “Celebrating and spending time with friends and family is core to Latin life, said John Ricardo, JWT, Brazil. Blending work and play is nothing new to us, so we focused on a situation where close friends and family are enjoying time together –made better by Windows 8-- as something that all can relate to”, said Ricardo.

“The fun in this story is continuing to spend time together after the party. The invitation to the cleanup and having the opportunity to be with your close friends and family was a fun twist on the story,” emphasized Ricardo.

This is just a sample of the Windows 8 stories and experiences that you’ll see come to life in this campaign. You’ve heard us say that Windows 8 is a “no compromise experience” and this marketing campaign reflects that. Work and family, freedom and mobility, new experiences and amazing innovations and one of the most personal technology experiences on the market today.

The campaign will include television commercials along with print ads, banner ads online, outdoor posters and branded-entertainment elements such as the musical show La Voz in Mexico, the iconic MTV European Music Awards in Germany, and the popular UEFA Champion League in Ireland which will last into the New Year.

And if you are in New York on October 25 thru the 27th don’t miss Times Square where Windows 8 will be featured on over 39 digital boards in the largest takeover of Times Square to date—the biggest Start Screen ever! And we will be hosting a hands-on experience on the ground in Times Square and at our Microsoft Stores in the North America for consumers to touch and try the new Windows —and maybe even see yourself up on the boards in Times Square. We hope to see you!

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We’ll Toast to That: Office 365 Provides Improved Collaboration and Efficiency for Global Team (Video)

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota a.stbar.chicklet img {border:0;height:16px;width:16px;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:middle;}a.stbar.chicklet {height:16px;line-height:16px;}Office 365 - We’ll Toast to That: Office 365 Provides Improved Collaboration and Efficiency for Global Team (Video) Create or Link an account or Sign in using [f] [t] [in] Please wait... Create or Link an account It only takes a few minutes to join.

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Close Microsoft Office Office Blogs Office 365 Home All Blogs Products Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook Access OneNote Publisher Office Web Apps Perspectives Office Casual Office in Education Office Exec Office 365 Subscribe to our RSS feed
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With a team of contributors located around the world, Wine & Spirits Magazine conducts a lot of business online. When employees started to use email for document management, collaboration became difficult and inefficient. Additionally, there were concerns that the content delivered to the printer might not be the final, edited articles. Seeing the many issues this way of working could create, the company began testing Microsoft Office 365.

Office 365 is a set of highly secure, cloud-based tools. It includes Microsoft SharePoint Online for collaboration and document sharing, Microsoft Exchange Online for email, and Microsoft Lync Online for instant messaging and web conferencing.

Watch the brief video below and hear directly from Wine & Spirits Publisher Josh Green and Director of Finance Roy Schneider about their experience with Office 365:

--Stephen Bury

See how customers are using Office 365 here.

Interested in trying or buying? Research plans or start a free trial now.

Just want to know more? Visit Office365.com.

 

 

Tags: Online Collaboration Software, Cloud Solution, Improve Collaboration Efficiency other Microsoft blogs Official Microsoft Blog Microsoft On The Issues The Windows Blog Bing Community Zune Insider Major Nelson other product blogs Office For Mac Office Web Apps InfoPath Project Visio other Office blogs Office IT Pro Office Updates Office Labs SharePoint Information Workers Legal | Trademarks | Privacy Statement © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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To avoid, that the State of global IRibbonUI Ribbon object

In today's post offers Excel MVP Ron de Bruin a solution to a common problem that occurs if you use RibbonX and VBA, customize Ribbon. For more tips and links to Excel add-in the Ron's Web site: http://www.rondebruin.nl/.

It is a common problem when you work with the Ribbon using RibbonX and VBA. Ribbon object (that is initialized when Excel loads the file) can lose the reference to the Ribbon, which is that your code can no longer say mean Excel to update your Ribbon customizations.
There is simply no simple, restore integrated fashion that handle for the Ribbon, if it problems in or with your code. The only way to fix it is close and not very user friendly reopen your workbook.

But MVP Rory Archibald came with a great idea in a post in the Forum MrExcel. In the example in the workbook that you can download on this page (see below) is based on Rory's idea and works in 32-bit Excel 2007 and Excel 2010 32-bit - and 64-bit.

You store the pointer to the IRibbonUI in a cell (or the name or where ever) and it use CopyMemory then get back, if the State is lost.

You can test this sample workbook this method, the Ribbon handle restored if it is lost.

Download: Loss of the Ribbon state.zip.  

Note: decided I me not the workbook code RibbonX to this page add, because, if you work the code in the workbook can see, it is much clearer. If all this is new to you, I suggest that you click on the link below, with my Ribbon page start then.

For more information about customizing the Ribbon, see to change the Ribbon in Excel 2007 or Excel 2010.

--Ron de Bruin

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