Try SharePoint 2013 Preview for free via Office365 or Cloudshare

If you, like me, are not a full blown IT-pro or have other difficulties setting up the Windows Server and SharePoint 2013 (or just no time), you don’t have to!

Microsoft has been so generous of setting up a full SharePoint 2013 Preview platform on Office365.

Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Preview

Just sign up for free, and you will get a test domain with the full SharePoint 2013, mailboxes, lync and other cool stuff.

Remember, this is a test domain and it will not be around forever: it will be around until about 60 days after the real deal hits the shelves. MS will send you notes when it is going to expire.

What is included:

  • With Office 365 Home Premium Preview you can install Office on up to 5 PCs and you get 7GB of online storage on SkyDrive so that you can save and share your documents online. Home Premium includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher.
  • Office 365 Small Business Premium Preview is ideal for businesses with up to 10 employees. Each user can install Office, getting the same applications that are included in Office 365 ProPlus, on up to 5 PCs, and enjoy professional email, shared documents, and HD video conferencing in an easy-to-manage solution that is hosted by Microsoft.
  • Office 365 ProPlus Preview lets you create up to 25 user accounts, with 5 installations of Office 365 ProPlus per user. It includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, and Lync.
  • Office 365 Enterprise Preview gives you the benefits of Office 365 ProPlus combined with Exchange Online, including archiving and legal hold to fully manage your company’s email in the cloud. It also includes SharePoint Online to manage and share documents, and Lync Online to allow you to conduct meetings and collaborate across remote teams and team members.
  • The final version of Office 365, when available, will include Office for Mac.

Cloudshare SharePoint 2013 Preview

Another cool deal comes from the people at Cloudshare. They have 2 sandboxed environments ready for anyone who wants to play around with SharePoint 2013:

Explore the StoneShare SharePoint 2013 Beta Environment Now

Explore the Innovative-e SharePoint 2013 Beta and Project Server 2013 Beta Environment Now

I couldn’t find any information regarding how long it is going to be up, but this is definitely a very cool solution from Cloudshare!

Sign up here!

About: Marijn

Marijn Somers (MVP) has over 14 years experience in the SharePoint world, starting out with SP2007. Over the years the focus has grown to Office 365, with a focus on collaboration and document management. He is a business consultant at Balestra and Principal Content Provider for "Mijn 365 Coach" that offers dutch employee video training. His main work tracks are around user adoption, training and coaching and governance. He is also not afraid to dig deeper in the technicalities with PowerShell, adaptive cards or custom formatting in lists and libraries. You can listen to him on the biweekly "Office 365 Distilled" podcast.