Microsoft broadens Office 365 beta, launches app store

From InfoWorld: Microsoft is expanding the beta testing program of its Office 365 cloud collaboration and communication suite, almost doubling the number of countries and languages it's available in, the company said on Monday.

In addition, Microsoft is opening an application and services storefront for the suite called Office 365 Marketplace. As of Monday, it features about 100 applications and 400 professional services from developers and channel partners.

Office 365, which includes hosted versions of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Lync, can now be tried out by users in 38 countries and its interface is available in 17 languages.

"This really takes Office 365 and cloud productivity to a whole new level through the expansion of the beta program," said Betsy Webb, general manager of Microsoft's Online Services division.

The Office 365 program is now expected to encompass hundreds of thousands of organizations with millions of end users, she said.

"This is a tremendous on-ramp to our general availability release which will be later this year," she said.

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