Microsoft releases Office Online Server bringing Office Online experience to on-premises

Microsoft today announced the release of Office Online Server (OOS), the successor to Office Web Apps Server 2013. Office Online Server allows organizations to deliver web versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote to their users from their own dataceter. Office Online Server will offer the same functionality Microsoft offers to general consumers with Office Online. With this new Office Online Server, users can also enjoy features like real-time co-authoring which was not available in the last version.

OOS scales well for your enterprise whether you have 100 employees or 100,000. The architecture enables one OOS farm to serve multiple SharePoint, Exchange and Skype for Business instances. OOS is designed to work with SharePoint Server 2016, Exchange Server 2016 and Skype for Business Server 2016. It is also backwards compatible with SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013 and Lync Server 2013. You can also integrate other products with OOS through our public APIs.

When you configure Office Online Server with SharePoint Server 2016, Exchange Server 2016 and Skype for Business Server 2016, following scenarios are possible according to Microsoft.

• When you integrate OOS with SharePoint Server 2016, generally available starting today, you can create, share and collaborate on Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote files in your browser. Most notably, OOS with SharePoint lets multiple people work in a document at the same time and see everyone’s changes as they happen. OOS also works with SharePoint Server 2013, Exchange Server 2013 or Lync Server 2013 with Office Web Apps Server 2013. So be at ease if you’re still running them—you will not need to run both Office Web Apps Server 2013 and OOS.
• By integrating OOS with Exchange Server 2016, you can view and edit Office file attachments in Outlook on the web and send back a reply without ever leaving your browser.
• With Skype for Business Server 2016, OOS enables high fidelity viewing of PowerPoint Online when sharing PowerPoint presentations during meetings.

OOS is now available for download from Volume License Servicing Center.