Microsoft is rechristening its Businesss Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and Live@edu suites as “Office 365″ and is launching a limited beta of the business version of the suite on October 19.
The codename for what some have called BPOS v2 was “Union,” according to my sources. Microsoft was rumored to be changing the final name of the new suite to Union, but that’s not the case, it turns out. Microsoft chose Office 365 to reflect “dependability every day of the year,” according to officials. (The recent BPOS uptime track record has been not quite so dependable, but it’s an aspiration….)
Office 365 is the new name for BPOS, going forward. There will be small-business, mid-size/enterprise, government and educational versions of the product, Microsoft officials said today. Office 365 for Education is the new name for Live@Edu.
