Darren Straight's Blog

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft Office Live (http://www.officelive.com/), a set of Internet-based services tailored to the needs of small businesses, will be coming out of beta in the United States on the 15th of November 2006. These services are expanding internationally as well and are also scheduled for free beta availability in France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom on the 15th of November. Office Live is designed to help small businesses attract new customers, generate repeat business and easily manage their business online by giving them the tools to establish a Web presence for free as well as a variety of easy-to-use and affordable business applications.

The upcoming release of Office Live provides updated Web site design tools with asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) technology to allow users to more easily drag and drop content and images into any section of their Web site. It also includes more page templates and the ability to modify and import HTML to create more robust and sophisticated Web sites. For customers with a Web site managed by another provider, Microsoft Office Live further streamlines the process of transferring domain names for greater ease of use. In addition, Office Live Mail lets users manage and access their calendars, contacts and tasks from almost any Web browser and use their Windows Mobile-based device to stay connected to their business and customers, while on the go.

To help match the unique and diverse needs of small businesses, Microsoft Office Live is available at three levels of service:

• Microsoft Office Live Basics: a company domain name; a Web site with 500 MB of storage; 25 company-branded e-mail accounts (each with 2 GB of storage)
• Microsoft Office Live Essentials, offered at $19.95 per month, includes all the features of Office Live Basics, 1 GB of Web site storage, 50 company-branded e-mail, calendar and instant messaging accounts, and Microsoft Office Live Business Contact Manager and online Workspaces for 10 users with 500 MB of storage.
• Microsoft Office Live Premium, $39.95 per month. Services include all the features of Office Live Basics and Office Live Essentials as well as an additional 2 GB of Web site storage; an increased capacity for 20 additional users and 1 GB of storage for the Workspaces. Office Live Premium also provides a rich set of Internet-based applications to help small-business owners streamline and automate the daily business tasks of managing their customers, projects and documents.

More information on Office Live can be found at the Microsoft Office Live Site.

Or why not check out the Office Live Team Blog!