ARN

​So Facebook has a new notification, and it's from Office 365

Social media giant rolls out web-based email and calendar services.
Tim Campos - CIO, Facebook on stage at Microsoft WPC in Toronto

Tim Campos - CIO, Facebook on stage at Microsoft WPC in Toronto

Facebook has signed a deal to migrate its employees to Office 365, rolling out Microsoft’s web-based email and calendar services to its 13,000-strong global workforce.

Revealed during the 2016 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, the social media giant is adding an email component to its internal Facebook at Work network, while also leveraging Microsoft’s Clipboard-Style app Delve.

“Productivity is our most important charter, but security and efficiency are also paramount,” Facebook CIO, Tim Campos, said.

“We need the right technology to empower employees, while also ensuring our business is safe at all times.”

According to Campos, Facebook will tap into certain aspects of Office 365, primarily utilising web-based versions, without access to Yammer, Microsoft’s rival workplace social network.

“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,” he explained.

“Office 365 also brings capabilities beyond Word, Excel and PowerPoint that are hard to replicate.

“Delve, using the Microsoft Graph, brings a new level of intelligence to collaboration by offering additional insights on how our employees work with each other.”

Campos said Microsoft’s personal analytics offering, coupled with other features such as Focused Inbox, will help create “greater effectiveness” at work for employees.

Going forward, Campos said as Microsoft continues to innovate with Office 365, the company will continue “adding and rolling out more services that have value for Facebook”.

James Henderson is attending 2016 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto as a guest of Microsoft.