Rather than having to invest money and time in creating a custom content delivery network for videos, Microsoft has created the Office 365 Video portal for businesses to distribute their videos internally. Office 365 Video is a free service with an enterprise Office 365 account. Office 365 Video is now rolling out to users.
"Office 365 Video...is growing, providing organizations with a secure, company-wide destination for posting, sharing and discovering video content," Microsoft said. "And the video experience—embedded within Office 365—meets IT requirements and wins the hearts and minds of users."
Going mobile
In addition to rolling out Office 365 Video worldwide, Microsoft is also giving iPhone owners a native app. Through the app, iPhone owners can watch and discover Office 365 Video content as they would on the web. Additionally, they can also shoot and upload videos directly from their iPhone.
Non-iPhone users can browse videos from a standard web browser. Microsoft says that the UI is made to dynamically adjust to optimize player size to your screen and browser window.
As Office 365 Video uses an HTML5 player, it will work work on mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.
Leveraging Azure Media Services
Office 365 Video relies on the Azure Media Services backbone. Once a video is uploaded to SharePoint Online, it's sent to the Azure Media Services, where it gets encoded with different resolutions and file sizes.
Azure will serve the video size and resolution that's most appropriate depending on the viewer's device type and connection speed.
Private or shareable
sers will have granular controls on how to share their videos.In each video channel, users can assign permissions on who can view the video content, such as Owners, Editors and Viewers. Videos are also encrypted for added security.
Uploaded videos can be shared on Office Delve as well as on Yammer.
- Read our review of Office 2016
