Microsoft StaffHub
staffhub.office.com
staffhub.office.com
This is most definitely not good design, since it fails completely to communicate anything.
This doesn't seem short-sighted at all, in fact even if I were running a business that didn't have a lot of computers, I would consider this. Most people (with jobs), at least in the U.S. at this point have at least a smart phone that could access email, scheduling, etc.
Even larger companies (such as fast food chains) could absolutely use this.
Who are non-staff workers? That site has some very strange turn of phrases. Like: "How staff workers live, work, and communicate." Without too much explanation. Isn't this just work scheduling with a work Sharepoint portal? How does it help manage how I 'live?'
Plus then the infographic which is obviously all teenagers (?) doing the pledge of allegiance (?).
The product itself seems acceptable even if quite pricey ($4/user/month for shift scheduling gets pricey after about ten users compared to the competition). I am just pointing out how freaking strange the landing page is, blurbs, and iconography. Feels like they're recruiting for a cult.
It looks like they're aiming this at small-business managers.
As interesting to me is email-only seems to be $2/user/month, which is really competitive to stand alone email providers.
It seems to me that they're offering a compelling competing product to what Google Docs has, and expanding upon it far more/better than where Google has. At least in terms of servicing business. This is actually pretty great. Leveraging a windows monopoly to encroach on other areas and using unpublished APIs for competitive advantage is quite different than this.
I wish MS all the best with this one.
It's an interesting idea, and the $4 pricing is definitely competing with Google Doc's $5 pricing that I've seen in some bundling. I think the $2/user/mo email only hosting is pretty interesting as well.