President Bill Clinton and Danica Patrick are behind us now and we are all back at work, catching up.

I have a few observations about SPC14 before we head off to the American Bar Association Techshow in Chicago.

1. I am quoting, “They should have called it Office 365 Conference 2014.” Indeed. If you have not seen Office 365 recently, take a good look. The interface is intuitive and friendly. The line between Office 365 and SharePoint 2013 blurs. Maybe SharePoint fades away and the capabilities become part of Office 365?

2. Yammer. No surprise here. Yammer social leads the way over SharePoint social.

3. Office 365 provides enhancements in security and control, including second factor authentication and rights management.

4. Business Intelligence takes a front seat. Analysis is done in Excel. A new product, Power BI, surfaces the data in Office 365 and offers collaboration.

5. Speaking of collaboration, in Office 365, concurrent users can now collaborate in editing Excel. This was already available in Word.

6. Oslo and the Office Graph.

Oslo is the code name for the new, powerful search in upcoming in Office 365, based on FAST. But it’s more than searching on a keyword. Oslo is the intelligence behind the Office Graph. The Office Graph understands a user’s relationships to people and content. Then Oslo serves up cards which provide the user with content and news which she is likely to be interested in.

Pictures are helpful: http://blogs.office.com/2014/03/11/introducing-codename-oslo-and-the-office-graph/

It strikes me that Microsoft is moving very rapidly to close the gap in hosted apps and in social. Oslo is slated for release later this year. If Microsoft delivers on the Oslo promise, it will be an almost dizzying leap forward.

Whether it is SharePoint Conference or Office 365 Conference – see you next time.

If you are in legal IT, look for us in booth 104 at ABA Techshow, Chicago Hilton, March 27th and 28th.

– Maureen