Office 365 to launch on June 28

Office 365 to launch on June 28Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the Office 365 cloud service will be launched on June 28 in an event in New York.

While speaking to an industry group in Delhi, India, he said that, "We're pushing hard in the productivity space. We'll launch our Office 365 cloud service, which gives you Lync and Exchange and SharePoint and Office and more as a subscribable service that comes from the cloud. That launches in the month of June."

The cloud service will replace the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and include access to Exchange, SharePoint, the Lync unified communications suite and offer desktop and Web-based versions of Office tools.

The Office 365 beta, which was launched earlier and was later expanded to a public beta, has been downloaded 100,000 times. The company had only said earlier that it will be launched later in the year but Ballmer’s announcement confirms reports that the suit will be available to take on competitors like Google.