Microsoft announced this week that it will be previewing its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) later this year. The updated suite will include SharePoint 2010 Online and other business productivity servers, such as Lync 2010 Online, Exchange 2010 Online and Office Live Meeting, as well as the Office Web Apps for Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

BPOS is popular among users, Microsoft says, because it has a relatively lower cost for subscriptions when compared to the older licensing models, resulting in easier access to newer technologies. “A lot of customers are seeing the cloud as an opportunity to move to newer versions of the applications that they’re already using,” said Betsy Frost Webb, Microsoft’s general manager of online services.