Facebook to use Microsoft 365

Facebook has announced adoption of  Microsoft's Office 365 service.  The social media site said on its official blog post on the matter that this was due to the service being mature, secure and cross platform.

''This is why we've implemented Office 365. Not only is it a mature and comprehensive platform, it meets our stringent security standards, it complements how we work with intelligence, flexibility, and it is continually evolving. It is globally deployed, accessible on every mobile platform we support, and it is secure. Most of all, it enables our productivity with powerful new capabilities for employees, such as the ability to share and edit traditional Excel documents at the same time, across devices.''

However, ChannelWeb had a different take on  why Facebook was warming up to Microsoft once again, with Facebook's CIO Tim Campos saying in a video, ''Do you really want to know the reason we picked Office 365? It's because of Microsoft. Microsoft got cool again.''

According to Campos, Microsoft was chosen as its products matched Facebook's mission to be bold and be fast, saying, ''Collaboration and technology in general is evolving. Our workforce expects to be on the latest and most innovative technology and collaboration patterns are changing with this. Employees shift from using email to other things, and we need good partnership from industry leaders. And in this, we're really happy to see Microsoft got its mojo back. We're not just buying Office 365 for what it can do today, it's for what Microsoft will bring tomorrow. We have great expectations.''

Meanwhile, Facebook Inc has signed a deal to use Microsoft Corp's online email and other software, even as it develops its own workplace communication and collaboration service, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Facebook was expected to announce plans to use Microsoft's Office 365, the web-based version of the software giant's suite of workplace productivity programs. Facebook had earlier used the on-premises versions.

The social network's 13,000 employees would tap some portions of Office 365, including its email and calendar, however they would not have access to Yammer, Microsoft's workplace social network, or Skype for Business, for messaging and videoconferencing, which directly competed with Facebook's own services.

Facebook has described email as ''inherently top-down'' compared with the collaborative nature of its own service, Facebook at Work, a workplace version of its popular social network introduced last year. Facebook at Work lets co-workers communicate and share content through the company's familiar web user interface, along with security and administration features designed for corporate technology managers.