Comprehensive walkthrough guide to Microsoft's Office 365 cloud suite

Until today, though prices and features of Office 365 have already been announced and covered in great depth, the service itself has been shrouded mostly in 'beta mystery'.

Many have signed up for the limited beta, to try out the services for their organisation before general release, but little has actually been seen of the suite of products, designed to 'cloudify' your business.

Office 365 comprises of three core cloud services: Exchange Online, for email, calendar and task management, SharePoint Online for shared collaborative workspaces and a company website, and evolved Lync Online which provides a voice and instant messaging communications platform.

But for so long, the secrets of what Office 365 comprises of actually looks like, we can now take a first hand, head first dive into the series of cloud applications in a series of screenshot and photo galleries.

Gallery 1: Exchange Online and the 'out of box' experience

This gallery walks you through the 'out of box' experience from the moment you receive your password through your email, to setting up and using your Exchange-based cloud inbox.

Gallery 2: SharePoint Online and the cloud-based website

A walkthrough the collaborative SharePoint Online experience, as well the Office Web Apps and the the editing and creation of your cloud-based corporate website.

Gallery 3: An in depth first look at Lync Online

Lync, the new cloud-based communications platform for voice and instant messaging, and how it integrates as part of your business. Includes a look at the web-based Lync Web App.

Gallery 4: The 'behind the scenes' administration console

Office 365 needs to be administered from somewhere, and here it is. This dashboard gives you a whole plethora of options to configure and manage your cloud-based organisation.

Office 365 is expected to be widely available later this year, and will replace the current Microsoft BPOS offering.