Microsoft Online Services was

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

's hosted-

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

offering and was an early component of its

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

strategy. Microsoft Online Services was hosted by Microsoft and sold with Microsoft partners. Initial services branded as 'Microsoft Online Services' included Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online,

Microsoft Forefront Microsoft Forefront is a discontinued family of line of business, line-of-business security software by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Forefront products are designed to help protect computer networks, Server (computing), network servers (su ...

, and

Microsoft Office Live Meeting Microsoft Office Live Meeting is a discontinued commercial subscription-based web conferencing service operated by Microsoft. Live Meeting included software installed on client PCs and used a central server for all clients to connect to. The service ...

. For businesses, the

approach enables organizations to access the capabilities of enterprise software through on-premises servers, as online services, or a combination of both, depending on specific business requirements. Services also provide the option to add complementary capabilities that enhance on-premises server software and simplify system management and maintenance. Around 2011, the products offered as 'Microsoft Online Services' were replaced by products within

Office 365 Microsoft 365 (previously called Office 365) is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs form ...

Product Suite: Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)

The Business Productivity Online Suite Standard represented the first of a growing portfolio of Microsoft Online Services. The BPOS was a component of the broader Microsoft

strategy that included both live and Online services. BPOS was succeeded by

. Where BPOS was based on Microsoft Exchange 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office 365 was originally built around the 2010 versions of Exchange and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).

Support

Microsoft established a specialized support department for its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), distinct from its standard Professional Support Services. The various types of support requests that customers might make are the justification for this separation. In contrast to the support requests for Microsoft products run on a company's infrastructure, such as when a support inquiry is made about mail-sending issues using Outlook and the customer's

Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems. The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the relat ...

, the technical aspects of support requests for BPOS may differ significantly. Additionally, customer expectations are different, as outsourcing services to Microsoft is done to avoid problems. Thus, when issues arise, customers anticipate a rapid resolution by Microsoft. To meet these expectations, Microsoft has established dedicated BPOS and

support desks in the United States and Ireland for the

EMEA Europe, the Middle East and Africa, commonly known by its acronym EMEA among the North American business spheres, is a geographical region used by institutions, governments and global spheres of marketing, media and business when referring to t ...

region. Hewlett-Packard (HP), Microsoft's primary support partner, engaged in identifying and training new Tier 1 and Tier 2 support engineers for this purpose.

References

{{Cloud computing

Online Services An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, ...