Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) gave the world the first look of its online Office 365 productivity suite this week. A rebranding of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and its Live@edu suites, this appears to be Microsoft's big move to take its Office suite squarely into the clouds against competition solutions from arch-rival Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

In a nutshell, Office 365 brings Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online together as part of an integrated cloud service. John Betz, Microsoft's director of product management for Business Online Services told the audience at the unveiling that, "With Office 365, we're delivering everything we know about productivity as a subscription service."

The opinion from analysts so far is that competitors, such as Google, need to pull up their socks. Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group criticized Google for its lack of focus, noting that "They do most things outside of search half-assed and, at some point, they will need to bring up their game and focus more if they want to be more than just a search vendor living off advertising revenue."

Partners appear to be upbeat over the Office 365 announcement. In an emailed statement, Serguei Sofinski, CEO of Intermedia wrote, "Finally, Microsoft has delivered an offering that has the potential to become a Google-beater." The business version of Office 365 is currently under a limited beta here, though you can see screenshots of it in action here. Microsoft says that the final version of Office 365 will be available starting in 2011.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at ZDNet
- check out this article at Computerworld
- check out this article at eWeek

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