Office365 Blocked

I am using Windows7 Pro with MS Office365 as my Web Email system. I installed Bitdefender (current version) on or about 2/6/14. This system was working perfectly for many months when using a competitor's virus protection system. Shortly after I elected to discontinue use of their system and switch to Bitdefender Small Business Pack 1-5 my access to Outlook 2007 was cut off and blocked by BitDefender. I contacted Microsoft directly and their tech support department assigned four agents to try to help resolve access to their servers. I own many other computers. I have another laptop that also uses Windows7 with the exact same set up except that Bitdefender has not been loaded on that system yet. That system works just fine. I also have a Windows XP64 which Bitdefender does not support... It works just fine as well. The agents from MicroSoft support witnessed firsthand that when they seek to have their software test the username and server address which they put in themselves... it locks up! It did this very consistently. We tried removing Bitdefender and we found that it would not PING either of the servers with Outlook but it would ping anything else on the internet and it had no problem establishing connection with my gateway or server. I have been able to establish a temporary solution of using IMAP which is dreadful to say the least. I have also experienced problems with MS Word which is also related to Bitdefender and has been reported separately on a different forum. MS Word began working immediately when I removed Bitdefender from my system. It has also affected several other MS products. Has anyone experienced these problems or better yet...found a cure? I have sought help from Bitdefender... but only received an email asking me to send them a screenshot. There is not screenshot available. There is also previous history of similar problems with the MS Word interference. I have only received an email from the tech support department saying that they are considering my problem... but no response and not attempts to contact me with any sort of legitimate help or assistance. I must recognize that at least MicroSoft has done a very impressive response by their agents although they have not been able to resolve the issue as of 2/24/14. Please advise.