Microsoft would love for more small and medium-sized businesses to use its cloud-based Office 365 subscription service instead of the stand alone Office 2013 software. The company launched new business versions of Office 365 in February. However, some companies with limited resources might find it hard to migrate their Office software to Office 365.
That"s where a new startup company, founded in part by two former Microsoft team members, might come in handy. The Seattle-based startup is called SkyKick and today it announced the official launch of its SkyKick Application Suite after testing it in beta for a year. SkyKick states:
Traditionally, “migration tools” on the market have been focused on moving server-side data, which is just one step in an overall migration consulting project. The SkyKick Application Suite takes a different approach by helping partners manage many of the steps of a migration project including the sales, planning, migration and on-site phases of their customer’s move to Office 365.
SkyKick says that during its beta test period it has helped to migrate thousands of small and medium-sized businesses over to Office 365 with three applications. One is WebPlanner, which helps businesses create the actual migration plan. The second is Migration Sync, which helps to move the actual data of employees and customers (email, calendar, contacts, aliases and more) to Office 365. Finally, there"s Outlook Assistant which helps to configure the Outlook clients, among other tasks.
SkyKick has raised a total of $3.7 million in investment money so far. With Microsoft pushing for more use of Office 365, a service like the one SkyKick has could be very popular in the months and years to come.
Source: SkyKick | Image via SkyKick