Microsoft Office 365 for Co-Working Spaces

If yesterday that I set up my small business, co-working spaces already existed, then I could have saved a bundle of money and, should things turned to the worse – which it did – I didn’t have to lose big time. Even just less than a decade ago, setting up shop for your new small business meant a huge bundle of money to spend on capital expenses whose depreciation period is at least two years. For a startup small business owner, that’s a huge investment.

So, Microsoft Philippines recently invited me to showcase their solution for a freelancer, entrepreneur or small business owner. But instead of a small business owner setting up production by renting or leasing an empty office space, building its interiors, buying furniture and fixtures, contracting a systems integrator to install structure cabling, servers and networks, buying all the enterprise or premise-based software you need, subscribing to a dedicated internet connection that’s much expensive than your regular home DSL service, hiring a receptionist, security guard and all-around administrative assistant, and other minor expenses that drive up the cost of starting a business with hardly any income coming it (Whew! That was long!), you subscribe to a co-working space.

This is where Microsoft Philippines’ Office 365 comes into the picture, a technology solution that gives the freelancer, the entrepreneur and the small business owner the ability to save on long-term cash by paying on-the-go or on-demand. Combine this with a co-working space like Penbrothers and the small business owner today has a way to reduce start-up costs (expenses that needs to mature for a long time before it goes back as an investment) and start the business without huge capital expenditures and worrying about the upkeep and maintenance of the workplace.

I’ve been a Microsoft Philippines Office 365 customers for quite a while now. For a mere $5 a month, you get both online and offline versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote and a few others I don’t really use. You also get 1TB of cloud space for your files – called OneDrive – which you can automatically sync on-the-go or manually update your files. Your Microsoft Windows Explore will reflect your OneDrive so you can just drag-and-drop files between your OneDrive and hard drive. I also have all five Microsoft Office 365 apps on my other devices in case I don’t have my laptop with me and I have to edit.

That 1TB of cloud space in my OneDrive is a biggie. It costs $3 or $5 per month to get an extra 100GB space in your Gmail; of course, Google Apps is free to use but I’m really more comfortable with Microsoft Office. I’ve also had a Mediafire.com cloud drive of about 50GB since 2007 or something like that, and use that to store photos and images that I want my blogs to access it, as opposed to uploading photos to my blog’s limited cloud space.

Going back, the partnership of Microsoft Philippines technology solutions and Penbrothers co-working space just makes sense. One solution that Microsoft Philippines offers Penbrothers customers is Windows 10 Pro for Business, an upgrade from my Windows 10 Home or personal edition. Like today’s requirement of work from anywhere, anytime, the Pro for Business edition has the built-in security and flexibility to keep up with an entrepreneur or small business owner’s growth, protecting your files and business information from digital threats.

Microsoft Philippines is on the road to more partnerships with co-working spaces in the country, as more and more freelancers, entrepreneurs and small business owners choose to start up in these virtual office space than the traditional but expensive route.

To learn more about Microsoft Philippines Office 365 and Windows 10 Pro for Business, go to www.microsoft.com/en-ph.

To learn more about Penbrothers co-working spaces, visit www.penbrothers.com.

Source: Press event from Dominguez Marketing Communications

Photos from (1) penbrothers.com | (2) microsoft.com

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