Microsoft Office 365, a suite of business-focused, cloud-based applications that was recently released in beta, is actually a repackaging and updating of various Microsoft offerings -- optimized for the cloud. The intent is to give small businesses the kind of benefits that up until now only large companies have been able to get from services such as Exchange and SharePoint.
Don't be confused by the product's name -- it's not a new or updated version of Microsoft Office. Office 365 is an upgrade of Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS). This revamped and renamed version of the suite adds subscription-based access to Office 2010 to BPOS and includes hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint and Lync (Microsoft's communications server), along with Office Web Apps, the Web-based version of Microsoft Office.
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