In less than 24 hours, the near feature-complete Windows 8 Consumer Preview (aka Beta) will be made available for everyone outside Microsoft to download, install, touch and taste.

Windows 8 is undeniably, one of the biggest single updates to Windows since the introduction of Windows 95. Some argue that it’s the biggest shake-up to Windows since the launch of Windows 3.0 back in 1990.

I couldn’t agree more!

I’ve been using Windows 8 on a daily basis since the developer preview (DP) was released in September 2011. I have been running Windows 8 on a variety of devices – installed locally on a Samsung Slate and Sony Vail Z Series laptop, running in virtual machines and accessing both locally and via remote desktop using a MacBook Pro (primarily running Windows 7) coupled to a 29” Apple Thunderbolt display in order to see how Windows 8 looks and feels on a larger-format display.

Now the the Windows 8 story is stabilizing and with the imminent introduction of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (CP), I’ll be increasing my posting volume considerably in the coming weeks and months. My goal is to offer you, dear reader, with a balanced, real-world view of Windows 8 – both the good, and the bad – without any of the over-the-top hyperbole and anti-Microsoft-at-all-cost fanaticism we see all too often on the web today.

I’ll be discussing Windows 8 from both the end-user perspective, as well from the perspective of a seasoned developer interested in exploring Microsoft’s exciting new app platform and examining strategies for porting existing Win32/.NET apps to run in the new MOSH environment.

I encourage you to add your comments, questions, thoughts and opinions, but please keep things reasonable and constructive. Unnecessary flames and abusive nonsense will be removed.

I am a HUGE fan of Microsoft’s suite of Office & Business suite – Business Productivity Online Suite – BPOS. For just $10 per user per month, I get Exchange, Sharepoint, Live Meeting and it all integrates smoothly with Microsoft Office.

This has saved me untold amounts of time and money compared to buying, installing, configuring and operating the equivalent services in-house.

Well, the news today just got even better! Microsoft today announced it is re-launching a significantly upgraded online business suite: “Office 365”. 

Office 365 includes the long-awaited upgrade to Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010, and also introduces Office Online and Microsoft Lync:

Introducing Microsoft Lync

Office 365 introduces Microsoft Lync Online – Microsoft’s latest and recently unveiled business server that integrates what used to be Office Communication Server and Live Meeting into one coherent business server product. Lync also sports a client application that replaces Office Communicator and the Live Meeting client.

Microsoft says:

Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.

As someone who lives and breathes in a virtual, interconnected world, Lync is a breath of fresh air!

Using Lync to collaborate on a document via video and voice-calls with colleagues

Importantly, the Lync Server product also offers enterprise-class PBX features enabling your business voice calls to be routed via VOIP if the callee is on a SIP-enabled VOIP system at the receiving-end too. We’ll have to see how deep the PBX features of Office 365 are, but if full PBX features are enabled, it could be a killer feature that dramatically decreases your business telephone costs and increase productivity!

Office Online

You’re probably familiar with Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint and Outlook – the core of most business’ IT systems today.

Office 365 introduces Office Online – a version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that all run entirely within your browser so you can work on your documents even when you’re away from your normal PC or you’re using a PC (or Mac or even Linux) which doesn’t have Office installed!

Accessing Exchange email via Outlook Web Access

Working on an Excel document in Excel Online hosted in Internet Explorer

Office offline too!

In addition to Office Online, Office 365 includes an option to pay $24 per user per month for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Office Online … but also gives you the right to install and use Office Professional Plus 2010! This is a killer suite and price point for the majority of businesses.

It’s not either or, it’s a continuum

One important point to get across is that, while others would have you believe otherwise, Microsoft truly does understands the reality of operating a business in these ever changing times.

If an entirely hosted infrastructure suits your business, then great, they’ve got an awesome offering for you. But if you have complex needs and need to host some of your own infrastructure in-house, then Office 365 will also suit you down to the ground, allowing you to push some of your selected services into the cloud, but retain other services that must remain hosted internally.

There are few cloud offerings that span the continuum from hosted entirely in-house to hosted entirely in the cloud, and every point in between.

“But surely, this costs a lot, no?”

Actually, no! Today, BPOS costs $10 per user per month. But Microsoft have just unveiled new pricing structure which benefits both larger customers as well as smaller clients. In true Microsoft fashion, Office 365 will come in several packages priced at different levels depending on the scope and features included:

At the very lowest end, the “Deskless Worker” edition, primarily targeted at the people within an organization that need access to email and documents, but little else, the price is dropping to $2 per user per month.

For smaller companies of 25 people or less, Office 365 “Lite” will be priced at $6 per user per month.

In Summary, Office 365 is a bargain!

$24 bucks a month per user per month for a world-class hosted Exchange, SharePoint, Communications and Collaboration platform with Office-online AND a full install of Office on your PC? AND you get to add/remove users as your business scales up and down and just pay for what you use.

Office 365 is a bargain!

For more details, visit the Office 365 website and sign up for the beta.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley also posted some more details on Office 365.