I currently have clients using Terminal Services for local-based Office 2010 and Exchange. It seems Microsoft is pushing Office 365/Cloud Exchange as an alternative. In my sites, the Office 2010 that is installed on the Terminal Server hooks into a lot of other applications - for instance there is
1) Outlook contact synching with accounting programs
2) being able to get to Adobe from just about any app.
3) The clients have macros and scripts - Word and Excel - that are pretty critical to the operations of their business
4) Additionally clients have add-ons, plug-ins of all kinds in IE
5) I have tight control of desktops through GPO but at the same time users have a lot of leeway with their 'look and feel'.
6) I can rollout specific components via centrally-designed Group Policy as well
Addressing each of the points above, I would appreciate responses detailing how these would work or not work with Office 365. In particular, I would like to hear at first instance from folks who have converted from 'premises' Terminal Services installations like mine to the 365/Exchange cloud model as it seems to be that Terminal Services already gives a 'cloud' experience.
ASKER
My first question to you is ignoring cost, what will Office 365 get me that I don't already have?
As well, as far as the individual points I brought up, if you migrated a site that has the types of configurations the points detail - and they are very normal to most sites - did you not run into any issues with any of the items?
P.S. One issue I overlooked was shadowcopy and backup in general - the idea of going back to one of a series of previous versions of a document. How does that fit in?
You mention in the article of being the man-in-the middle with Microsoft - in the middle for what? What type of issues are you calling them about? Do you have your Office 365 working with Terminal Services?
The fact is that most of the folks I know who have looked at Office 365 have all come up against various things that won't work - or are not sure if they will work - the list I compiled is as much the list of colleagues as my one. So if you have dealt with and resolved each of the points I would like to hear it from you point by point - if you haven't covered a point that's ok. I am not interested in what should work in theory - I want to know what people have working with Office 365 and Terminal Services.