Office desktop setup provides multiple benefits, including: Automatically detecting necessary updates Installing updates and components upon approval or silently from a command line Automatically configuring Outlook and Microsoft Lync for use with Microsoft Office 365 Uninstalling itself from the client computer after running A list of these update requirements are available for companies that want to use an alternative method of deploying the updates. See the help topic for details. Note Office desktop is not an authentication or sign-in service and should not be confused with single Federated Identity and Single Sign-On With on-premises Active Directory, administrators can use a single sign-on approach to Office 365 authentication. To achieve this, administrators can configure on-premises Active Directory Federation Services—a Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 service—to federate with the Microsoft Federation Gateway. After Active Directory Federation Services is configured, all Office 365 users whose identities are based on the federated domain can use their existing corporate logon to automatically authenticate to Office 365. Operating System and Software Requirements Table 1 shows the operating system and browser combinations that are required to access Microsoft Office 365 services—including SharePoint Online. Table 1: Operating systems and browser combinations supported by Microsoft Office 365 Operating system Supported browers Windows 7 (32-bit) Windows Internet Explorer 8 and later versions Firefox 3 and versions Chrome 6 and later versions Windows 7 (64-bit) Internet Explorer 8 and later versions Firefox 3 and later versions Chrome 6 and versions Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (32-bit) Internet Explorer 7 and later versions Firefox 3 and later versions Chrome 6 and later versions
Features of SharePoint Online SharePoint Online enables a company to easily create and manage custom team-focused and sites for collaboration. In addition, it is possible to deploy a company-wide intranet portal used to disseminate information and news across the organization. This section presents an overview of the key SharePoint Online features and specifications. You can also learn more about SharePoint Online from these valuable resources: (on TechNet) (on MSDN) (on Office.com) Subscription Plans Each user who accesses the SharePoint Online service must be assigned to a subscription plan. SharePoint Online offers multiple types of plans. See Table 4 below. In addition to the K1-2 and E1-4 plans, SharePoint Online Plan 1 and SharePoint Online Plan 2 can be purchased on a standalone basis or as part of an Office 365 suite. A Kiosk subscription is not sold as a standalone offer, only as part of the Kiosk suite (Exchange Online Kiosk and SharePoint Online Kiosk suite). It is possible to mix subscription plans within a single tenancy. Customers can also purchase an additional add-on associated to SharePoint Online: Additional storage. Should you require more storage, it is available at a cost per gigabyte (GB) per month. Please review the Office 365 price list at 4 compares usage rights for the different types of subscription plans. 4. High-level usage rights comparison across user subscriptions plans Feature Partner Access Plan (external partners) SharePoint Online Kiosk 1 and Kiosk 2 SharePoint Online E1 and E2 SharePoint Online E3 and E4 SharePoint Online Plan 1 SharePoint Online Plan 2 Can access all team sites by default? No1 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes My Site No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Enterprise Features (Access, Business Connectivity Services (BCS), InfoPath Excel and Visio Services) Yes2 Yes3 No Yes2 No Yes2 Office Web Apps View only K1 - View only K2 - View and edit E1 - View only E2 - View and edit View and edit View only View only