Microsoft unveils Office 365 Video for secure enterprise video sharing and streaming

Microsoft is giving Office 365 users an early glimpse of what it hopes will become the future of enterprise video sharing. Office 365 Video harnesses the power of SharePoint and Azure Media Services to create a tool that gives businesses a one-stop-shop for uploading, sharing, delivering and streaming videos.

A number of possible scenarios are set out by Mark Kashman, a senior product manager in the Office 365 group. From providing employees with access to training videos to delivering CEO messages, this is a flexible tool that has been designed with security and simplicity in mind. Office 365 Video is not expected to launch until early next year, but a sneak peak is available right now.

For anyone who has signed up for Office 365 First Release, the rollout starts now, but general release is still a few months away. It gives organizations a single location to store videos, and there is a strong focus on security at all stages of delivery. Videos can be uploaded in a number of popular formats, and they'll be automatically converted into streamable formats. Office 365 Video aims to provide the best possible experience for anyone watching streaming video, no matter what device they are using, and to this end, multiple versions of the same video are create at different quality levels -- although only the initial upload counts against storage usage.

Office 365 Video adapts video playback according to network conditions and the devices involved. The aim is to provide the highest quality video possible, and checks are performed every couple of seconds to see if quality should be dropped slightly to deliver better performance. Uploaded videos are fed into Office Graph and are discoverable in Delve, with the Delve cards automatically pulling in pertinent information about videos. A page is created for every video that's uploaded, and this features the option to share via Yammer for collaborative work.

This is all part of Microsoft's NextGen Portals for SharePoint which will make it easier than ever to pull in information from a variety of sources, and make it available to a range of devices. As this is an enterprise tool, there are suitable security tools in place to ensure that videos are only accessible to authorized users.

Check out the video below where Microsoft shows how Office 365 video combines the power of SharePoint Online and Azure Media Services: