The Rise PR Blog

Good tech PR - Office 365 launch

29 June 2011

This is the first in a series of (probably occasional, given my blogging track record) posts where I highlight examples of good tech PR.

First up is the recent launch of Microsoft’s Office 365, the cloud version of its Office software suite. The formal launch was yesterday, centred around two events in London and New York, although buzz had been building up for a long time prior to that. Office 365 has been in the pipeline for what feels like years so the PR team are to be commended on the amount of noise generated, in both traditional and social media.

That said, the launch of Office 365 will be a good exercise into the effectiveness of PR. Microsoft has launched it to combat the ever-growing user base of Google and other web-based software solutions and is a major risk given the amount of cash Microsoft generates from the sales of Office software pre-installed on PCs.

Given the rise of smart phones and tablets however, and the increased flexibility in working they provide, it was a move Microsoft had to make. The days of people sat at a PC 24/7 are long gone - people work on the move, in remote locations and at all hours of the day - and they need software that suits those changing requirements. Microsoft lacks heritage in the cloud and it remains to be seen whether Office 365 will be a success, given the market traction Google already has.

But the PR campaign to launch it was, so I guess it’s now a case of ‘over to you, sales and marketing’.