With Microsoft has newly launched Office 365, its latest cloud-based efficiency suite, Logitech just announced a brand new series of headsets and webcams made to reap the benefits of the software.

Microsoft Lync, system powering Office 365, delivers "unified communication" or, to put it differently, no will need for third-party video chat software like Skype or perhaps the sort of big-buck hardware generally used in the boardroom.

Logitech's providing includes a quartet of webcams plus a few headset and speakerphone alternatives. At $149, the top-of-the-range B990 webcam includes a 5-megapixel sensor able to recording in stereo and 720p audio. On the other end, $79 gets the Pro 9000 webcam that includes a lower-resolution 2-megapixel sensor. Logitech's greatest attract this hardware is always that not one of the webcams call for installation software program, along with Office 365, there's no outside video-conferencing software program necessary either. This integration points for the power of Office 365. Any office 365 suite offers networking productivity, such as Google Apps, however bests Google in Microsoft's support for hardware improvement. In essence, with Office 365 inside the cloud and also the Lync architecture powering additionally, it running hardware, Microsoft can offer you video conferencing (also as every one of Office's productivity features) without installing software program across an whole business' network.

For outfits that find constructing an office system prohibitively expensive, or for really smaller businesses by which employees function mostly from their own computers, Microsoft now has a remedy which has the pliability of becoming in the cloud. And while you will find other options which have been obtainable longer, like Google Apps, Logitech's launch of Office 365 hardware is evidence that Microsoft has sufficient clout to create an ecosystem that will finest Google Apps.