After weeks of speculation, Microsoft’s latest subscription service for small-business users is set to enter wide-scale testing on February 15.
Microsoft Corp. announced the beta availability of Microsoft Office Live, offering small-business customers a cost-free opportunity to experience the company’s new Internet-based software services firsthand.
Office Live is a family of add-on services designed to complement Microsoft Office, the same way that the growing stable of Windows Live services will extend Microsoft Windows.
A milestone for the online services previewed last fall, Microsoft Office Live combines the power of software and services to deliver rich and seamless experiences to small companies that want a presence online.
Microsoft Office Live helps lower the barriers to doing business online by offering small companies a set of Internet-based business services. Designed for ease of use and affordability, the online services are designed to give small businesses the same advantages as larger enterprises by getting them up and running on the Internet quickly, easily and inexpensively.
The Internet is crucial to running a successful business today, and companies that do not have at least an online presence risk missing out, said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division.
As expected, Microsoft is unveiling test versions of three different Office Live offerings: Office Live Basics, Office Live Collaboration and Office Live Essentials. The trio of services will be supported by online advertising and should be commercially available by the end of 2006, Microsoft officials said.
With Microsoft Office Live, we are making online services available for small businesses to create an enterprise-like IT infrastructure for them without the management requirements. Our goal is to make it easy and affordable for small businesses to have a more customizable Internet-based solution.
Levels of Service to Meet Small-Business Needs
As Microsoft outlined last November when it went public with its Microsoft Live strategy, Office Live will come in three flavors. An all-in-one solution supported by online advertising, the beta trial offers free versions of all three Microsoft Office Live versions included in the initial public release.
The target audience for all three families of Office Live services are small business customers with 10 or fewer employees, “which typically lack in-house technical resources or the budget to keep an IT person on staff," according to Microsoft.
Microsoft Office Live Basics: A collection of free services ‘advertising-supported’ will provide a small business with the core requirements for establishing an online identity. Services include a
company domain name; five e-mail accounts using that company domain name, each with 2 GB of storage; a Web site with 30 MB of file storage space; an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop design tool for creating a compelling, professional-quality Web site; and the Microsoft Office Live Site Reports tool for monitoring and analyzing Web site traffic.
Microsoft Office Live Collaboration: Designed for small businesses that may already have a Web site, this subscription offering provides a rich, versatile set of Internet-based business management tools that are managed and maintained by Microsoft. Based on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services technology, the Microsoft Office Live Collaboration service offers small businesses password-protected online workspaces (intranets and extranets). Capabilities include customer management, project management, sales and marketing management, employee management, and company administration, as well as password-protected internal shared sites to facilitate collaboration among employees, customers, suppliers and other business partners.
Microsoft Office Live Essentials: A comprehensive set of business services, this subscription offering will provide customers with the resources and collaboration tools they need to establish and manage a small business online. Services include a company domain name; 50 e-mail accounts using that company domain name, each with 2 GB of storage; a Web site with 50 MB of file storage space; the same Web design tool as Microsoft Office Live Basics, plus Microsoft Office FrontPage support for advanced Web design; more advanced Web site analytics; and a rich set of Internet-based applications to help small-business owners streamline and automate daily business tasks, such as management of customers, projects and documents.
The Office Live beta bits will be downloadable by testers starting at 6 a.m. PST on Wednesday, Microsoft officials said.
Individuals interested in testing Office Live can sign up for beta consideration on the Office Live Web site. Currently, the beta is open to U.S. participants only. Microsoft plans to add Office Live beta programs in other countries later this year.
All three Microsoft Office Live services are designed to work independently, as well as to integrate with other programs in the Microsoft Office suite. For example, Microsoft Office Live services can enhance the experience even further for those customers using Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint and Microsoft Office Outlook.
Beta Pricing and Availability
According to LiveSide, "Beta testers will require a product key in order to access the beta program. As will be visible when the portal finally opens on Wednesday, Office Live Collaboration and Essentials are expected to be available from $29.95 once the beta finishes."
Microsoft expects to release the final public versions of all three Microsoft Office Live services in late 2006. Although at this time the beta program is open only to U.S. businesses, Microsoft plans to offer beta programs later this year in international markets.