Buying and maintaining essential software is a drain on the cash flow of many businesses, says Vox Telecom's Microsoft product manager, Jonathan Young - which is precisely why so many companies are turning to options that allow them to rent software by the month.
"Microsoft Office powers over 93% of today's business, but the upfront costs of purchasing a copy of Office can be very daunting, with costs at over R2 000 per user for the most basic version," says Young. "As a result, many companies struggle along for years with outdated software, which can affect their productivity." There is a simpler and easier way to get the most up-to-date, licensed copy of Office without the upfront cost. Office on Demand from Vox allows the customer to rent Microsoft Office with a Virtual Filing Cabinet on a monthly basis.
Choosing a rental option such as the new Office on Demand with Office Standard can cost as little as R165 per user per month, according to Young - with automatic upgrades and the ability to quickly and easily add and remove users.
"This has all the cost and flexibility advantages of software as a service, but customers get a fully functional local version of the software," says Young. "If your network connection is slow or goes down, you can still function.
"Office on Demand also comes with 5GB of encrypted cloud storage per user," adds Young. "That means everyone has access to all their documents, wherever they are - and if a laptop is stolen, it's easy to get up and running again on a new machine. There's also a much lower risk of exposing confidential information, because thieves can't get access to the software and files without the right password."
The "Virtual Filing Cabinet" storage bundled with Office on Demand is much more secure than comparable free services as all the data is encrypted with 256-bit encryption, says Young. "Google and Dropbox offer free cloud storage, but the service is not secure and there are no performance guarantees."
The on-demand option is also ideal for companies that want temporary access to more specialised products like Visio or Project, says Young. "It's not uncommon to need access to one of these for a few weeks or months - which makes incurring a capital cost to get the software very unattractive. Renting it for the duration makes much more sense."
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