The news is all over online – perhaps you saw the PC World article or the official Microsoft announcement – Office 365 is out as a public beta and ready for you to take it for a spin! It’s the successor to BPOS, Business Productivity Online Suite and gives you productivity goodies such as:

• Hosted email and calendaring with Exchange Online
• Online collaboration through SharePoint Online
• Real-time conferencing and telepresence through Lync Online
• With certain subscription levels, you get Office – Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010, to be precise, as part of your service plan

Here’s a diagram that gives you the 10,000-foot view of what Office 365 can do for you (click to get the full-size version):

If you’d like to get the public beta of Office 365, office365.ca is the place to go! You’ll find out more about the various packages available for business, from small businesses who want to get stuff done but don’t have the IT department or infrastructure, up to the biggest enterprises looking to integrate Office 365 with their own infrastructure for that special you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter IT goodness.

There’s also the Office 365 Blog and the Office 365 Technical Blog, which show you how to best take advantage of Office 365 tools as well as performing advanced tasks and troubleshooting issues. If you’re the competitive type, there’s the Ready for Work contest where you can win $50,000, a one-year subscription to Office 365 for your business and more – and all you have to do is share your Office 365 success story on our Facebook group.

Go for it – sign up for the Office 365 beta now!

This article also appears in Canadian Developer Connection.

If two monitors boost your productivity, imagine what this setup could do for you…

[This photo originally appeared in Forex Chronicles.]