By Kevin Miller, Founder and President, BlueEdge Consulting

I run a consultancy, BlueEdge Consulting, which specializes in implementing IT cloud solutions for small and midsize businesses. I’ve spent more than 20 years setting up IT infrastructures for Fortune 500 companies, so I understand the work involved in caring for infrastructure services like email.

Many of my customers are frustrated with technology. They don’t have the time to stay abreast of new technology or the money to keep their technology up-to-date. When I launched my business in 2003, I focused on helping customers set up and care for internal systems. But when cloud computing entered the picture, I shifted my efforts completely in that direction.

When I first learned about Microsoft Online Services back in 2008, I knew that I wanted to be part of it. I was one of the first resellers of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS), and today I am a member of the Microsoft Cloud Champions Club.

Microsoft Office 365 takes BPOS to the next level by offering some great improvements. It provides a single logon and portal for doing everything. It combines instant messaging and conferencing in one service: Microsoft Lync Online. Microsoft SharePoint Online has the familiar Microsoft Office interface and much more storage space. With Microsoft Exchange Online, email archiving is built in. And with some subscriptions, customers can license the full Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 suite. Office 365 builds on the rich experience of Microsoft Office 2010 and extends it to the cloud.

When I tell customers what Office 365 includes—and that it has built-in backup and business continuity for its services—a big light bulb goes on for them. All of their critical programs are included in one service. They don’t even have to license separate spam and virus prevention software—it’s all there.

In my own business, Office 365 will be a lifesaver. All my customer data will be in either Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online or SharePoint Online. I’ll be able to access customer data in Microsoft Dynamics CRM through the Microsoft Outlook 2010 messaging and collaboration client. Pricing spreadsheets, contracts, leads, and all data will be stored in SharePoint Online. And I can access everything from my Windows Phone, including email, calendar, and contacts.

Office 365 will save me a couple of hours a day and help me to be more responsive to customers. When customers ask me to make a change to their SharePoint site, I just enter a user name and password, and I’m in. I probably use the screen-sharing feature in Lync Online at least once a week. When customers call with problems, I just invite them to a Lync session and look at their computer screens to see the problem. My customers are all over the Philadelphia area, so this really saves time traveling to customer sites.

Office 365 is also a terrific value. I understand what it takes to get these services in place, and it’s amazing that I can have the same services that a Fortune 100 company has and only pay as little as $6 per employee a month.

I’m expecting Office 365 to double my business, and my customers are just as excited about it as I am.

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