Communications giant Sprint is looking to help its small to medium-size business (SMB) customers improve their productivity with Cloud Optimizer, available with Microsoft’s cloud productivity solution Office 365 offered by Sprint.
The platform features caching technology that lets users enjoy the collaboration functionality of Office 365 and SharePoint Online as well as read access to customer-selected public Websites from virtually anywhere, even if they have limited or no Internet access.
The key feature is bandwidth optimization, which reduces network traffic associated with Office 365 and other public Websites, enabling more efficient use of a wireless area network (WAN). Continuous offline access to SharePoint Online sites and documents mean when users are offline or experiencing bandwidth constraints they can still read and edit SharePoint forms and pages, as well as Microsoft Office documents.
The feature also allows offline reading of non-password-protected Web pages, so users can take their favorite Web content with them, whether connected or not. Offline optimization offers service interruption protection by ensuring an always-on experience for all users, the company claimed.
“Sprint Cloud Optimizer offers yet another valuable capability that helps companies enjoy even greater productivity, while also reducing the impact of customer network congestion and other remote-working challenges,” Wayne Ward, vice president of business and product development for Sprint, said in a statement. “Employees can work virtually anywhere and have all the benefits of remote cloud-based access to Office 365 plus enjoy Web content when offline, while their company can save from more efficient bandwidth utilization.”
When online, users can tap into accelerated Web browsing as cache technology reduces the downloaded content, which means pages and documents may load faster so workers can improve their productivity.
Cloud Optimizer is the latest of several enhancements introduced by the company in 2013 for the cloud productivity solution, Office 365, which are designed to make it easier for SMBs to collaborate and communicate from anywhere they are, whether in the office or on the go.
Office 365 offered by Sprint includes unique Carefree Cloud migration and onboarding assistance, 24/7 support, online resources and a user-friendly portal to manage the services. Carefree Cloud is available with all Office 365 plans offered by Sprint at no additional charge, and the onboarding and migration services portion of Carefree Cloud are provided at no additional charge when used within the first 90 days of purchase to all employees within a business.
Sprint offers a slew of cloud-based solutions in addition to software as a service (SaaS) with Office 365, including unified communications as a service (UCaaS) with the company’s Complete Collaboration platform and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) with CloudCompute. Sprint also delivers a private-label cloud services platform to wholesale customers, the company noted.