RSSMS Office Live to Launch Wednesday
By Ed Oswald | Published February 14, 2006, 1:00 PM
Microsoft will launch Wednesday its highly anticipated Office Live product, a set of services aimed at bringing online small business with less than ten employees. Office Live will offer e-mail, Web domains, Web site hosting and other services for free during the beta.
After the beta ends, a basic package of services would stay free, however higher-tier packages would be sold on a subscription basis, likely for less than $50 per month.
Microsoft plans three packages when the Office Live officially launches later this year.
Office Live Basics, the free entry level service, would give subscribers domain hosting, five e-mail addresses with 2GB of storage, 30MB of server storage space for their site, a 10GB bandwidth limit, basic Web site statistics, and e-mail based support.
Office Live Essentials offers the same services as the basic package, but with 50 e-mail addresses, 50MB of space, 25GB of bandwidth, telephone support, and more advanced statistics. Additionally, users would gain access to 20 business applications.
Microsoft also said it would just sell the business applications themselves in a package called Office Live Collaboration.
Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox says that Microsoft is creating a new market for those smaller companies who may find Exchange, SharePoint or Project too expensive or too cumbersome to manage.
"Microsoft's approach extends those products' capabilities, and their potential benefits, to the smallest businesses," Wilcox explained. "As those businesses grow, Microsoft has created opportunity for its partners to upsell server software that would maintain and extend Office Live capabilities. Smart."
However he stressed that these products are not hosted versions of Microsoft Office products, as the name may confuse some into believing. In fact, Wilcox said he doubts the Redmond company would ever get into the hosted applications business.
Future additions to the Office Live product lineup include e-commerce applications, as well as keyword advertising for customers.
Wilcox says that more than half of Microsoft revenues come from small business, so the Office Live concept makes sense in that respect. "A hosted service option would provide small businesses with tools they can immediately use without making a hefty, upfront investment," he said.
Nice free webspace! I'm signed up!
Funny...where are all the MS bashers now? (kidding)
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Ahh cool. Finally got an account today.
Good stuff.
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Only for US residents if I understood it well ?
OK, fine - keep it that way when it's ready to market MS !!
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Again for a limited number of previledged beta testers ?
I hope that these people will bring you the orders=money afterwards as well.
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Anyone know when you can sign up?
I already went to http://officelive.microsoft.com and it's still in beta.
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Requires acceptance to the program by MS.
As an alternative, you can get your own Windows Live Domain (https://domains.live.com/) for free now. Features:
Create up to 60 e-mail accounts within your domain
Get a 250 MB inbox for each account*
Check your e-mail from any Web-enabled PC
Junk e-mail filter protection using Microsoft SmartScreen technology
Virus scanning and cleaning of e-mail
Seamless access with MSN Messenger, MSN Spaces, etc.
This is as close as you can get to Office Live right now without being invited into the Beta.
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Get an account at Dreamhost... it's cheaper, more features, and not Microsoft-ized...
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I like Dreamhost, too, but they're not as reliable as they used to be.
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Cheaper than free?
What are you smoking, and where can I get some?
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TCO, man...Imagine the man-hours he'd spend whining about it. ;P
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You feed the mouse to catch it . . .
Yes, yes - - and all this will end up in grid computing with just a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor and, of course, a super-duper lightwave fast WAN connection and they will charge online, too.
JUST TRUST US!
Wow! - Not to forget MOBILEs - - -
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"Office Live Basics, the free entry level service, would give subscribers domain hosting, five e-mail addresses with 2GB of storage, 30MB of server storage space for their site, a 10GB bandwidth limit, basic Web site statistics, and e-mail based support."
Holy crud. How can they provide all that for free? As of tomorrow, I will be my own small business.
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If MS is serious about courting small businesses, they're going to need to tone done the buzzword-heavy Microsoftspeak and start using plain English. Nothing turns my customers off more than trying to wade through the brochures and web links that describe MS's various offerings.
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nice
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How about the privacy concerns with this online computing?.. I would think companies would be a bit nervous about that.
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