At first glance, Office 365 seems like a service uniquely tailored for small and medium businesses, and maybe even consumers. A subscription-based cloud service managed by Microsoft works well for those who are less tech savvy, or who don't have an IT department at their disposal to administer it all. However, the same benefits and advantages that make Office 365 appealing to SMBs and consumers also hold true for large corporations.

Toyota apparently agrees--at least for the most part. According to a , "In addition to using Office 365, Toyota will provide its employees based in Japan and other overseas affiliates with on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Lync and Windows Server."

Employing a hybrid solution combining on-premise servers with Microsoft's cloud-based services gives Toyota the flexibility to choose the best solution on a case-by-case basis depending on business needs.

The monthly costs of the Office 365 subscription model will eventually surpass what it would cost Toyota to simply upgrade all employees to Office 2013. However, that isn't an apples to apples comparison. Office 2013 is just Office 2013, while Office 365 is Office, along with Exchange, SharePoint, Lync.

The monthly costs of Office 365 include the back end infrastructure, and the IT department to manage it as well. Office 365 puts the burden of hardware maintenance and software upgrades on Microsoft, and frees customers--like Toyota--to focus on running their business. When you factor in all of the costs associated with deploying and managing Office, Exchange, and SharePoint locally, in many cases.