Microsoft 365 is bringing Microsoft’s productivity, operating system and management technologies closer together. Here’s why the announcement represents more than another Microsoft product name.

For years, businesses have associated the Microsoft Office name with productivity.

Word means documents. Excel means spreadsheets. PowerPoint means presentations. Outlook means email.

Office 365 expanded this idea by introducing organizations to a continuously delivered collection of cloud productivity services.

Now Microsoft is taking another step with Microsoft 365.

What Is Microsoft 365?

The Microsoft 365 branding was introduced for the enterprise market in 2017.

Rather than simply being another edition of Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365 combines the productivity capabilities associated with Office 365 with Windows and Microsoft’s cloud-based management and security technologies.

That makes the strategy considerably broader than Office alone.

A modern organization does not only need applications.

It needs to manage users, devices, data and access to corporate resources.

Microsoft 365 moves these previously separate conversations closer together.

Why Does Microsoft Need Another Platform?

The traditional corporate computer environment was relatively predictable.

Employees came into an office, signed into a domain-joined Windows computer and accessed internal applications and file servers.

The modern workplace is becoming much less predictable.

An employee may work from a laptop one day and a mobile device the next. Applications can reside in Microsoft’s cloud or another software-as-a-service platform. Files can be accessed outside the company network.

The security boundary is therefore changing.

Controlling everything exclusively through the traditional corporate network becomes more complicated when users, applications and information are increasingly mobile.

Office 365 Remains Important

The arrival of Microsoft 365 does not suddenly make Office 365 irrelevant.

Quite the opposite.

Office 365 represents a major productivity component within the broader Microsoft cloud strategy.

Microsoft’s productivity services include familiar tools for creating documents and presentations alongside cloud-based services for email, communication, file storage and collaboration.

What changes with Microsoft 365 is the scope.

Organizations can start thinking about productivity, operating systems, device management and security as pieces of a wider technology strategy.

The Device Becomes Part of the Conversation

This is particularly interesting for Windows administrators.

Historically, Windows desktop management and Office administration could feel like separate responsibilities.

As cloud management matures, those worlds are becoming increasingly connected.

The state of a device matters when that device is accessing corporate information.

The user’s identity matters.

The applications installed on the device matter.

And policies controlling corporate information matter.

A Sign of Things to Come

Microsoft 365 therefore represents more than another licensing name.

It gives us an idea of where Microsoft sees enterprise IT heading.

The future Microsoft workplace appears increasingly centered around cloud identity, managed devices, cloud productivity applications and integrated security.

For IT professionals, that means the required skill set is likely to broaden as well.

Knowing Windows may no longer be enough.

Knowing Office may no longer be enough.

Administrators will increasingly need to understand how identities, endpoints, applications and cloud services interact.

Final Thoughts

2017 may eventually be remembered as an important year in Microsoft’s transition from traditional software vendor to integrated cloud platform provider.

Office 365 demonstrated that productivity software could become a continuously evolving cloud service.

Microsoft 365 takes the concept further by connecting productivity with the Windows and enterprise management ecosystem.

For administrators, this is worth following closely.

The modern workplace is starting to look very different from the traditional corporate desktop.