"In this beta exchange environment you have to wait an hour before connected mail accounts will be checked. This is unacceptable," the user wrote this week. "Will this change in the final version? If not, I will move on. For me, as a freelancer it is not [a] workable situation."
Another user complained about calendar tasks not syncing properly with a Windows mobile phone, and others had trouble creating SharePoint sites.
Burns also complained about non-delivery of emails, coupled with a status dashboard that is less than informative. In a case where multiple people told him they received bounce-back emails while trying to contact him, the Office 365 dashboard insisted there were no problems at all.
"Office 365 can have problems on its side, and I'd like to be informed via an administration tool when that happens," Burns says.
Another nagging issue was configuring Office 365 to work with a website hosted by a non-Microsoft provider. Microsoft offers documentation on how to do this, but Burns says the process was full of snags and took many hours.
Burns temporarily had problems inviting people to Lync meetings via email, until that issue was fixed. He's also struggled with importing Word documents into Office Web Apps while keeping the right format, even though Microsoft has loudly touted its ability to import documents and criticized Google Docs for its failure to do so.
Overall, though, Burns is impressed by Microsoft's new cloud service. "I'm totally impressed with that price, and I'm really impressed that they're letting people even just buy one seat per company," he says.
But will the transition from beta to general availability go smoothly? We'll find out soon.
Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jbrodkin
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