Office Live: an introduction

By Tim Kimber 

First of all, a quick explanation of what Office Live is, since this can cause some confusion. Office Live is a set of web services designed to help start-ups and small businesses get an online presence.

The entry-level offering is called Office Live Basics and includes a completely free domain name (like https://www.mycompanyname.co.uk/ and importantly the customer takes ownership of this domain name and is free to move it away from Office Live in future if desired), a free fully hosted (by Microsoft) website starting at 500MB with the ability to add extra storage if needed, 25 x 2GB business email accounts, online calendar, tasks and instant messenger.

We also offer two subscription services called Office Live Essentials and Premium which provide more webspace, more email accounts, online customer management tools, online workspaces for collaboration and a set of online business applications for managing projects, time, documents, administration and so on. Check out https://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/officelive/FX101925601033.aspx to see a comparison of the offerings.

The UK Office Live beta started on 21st November 2006 and the beta phase ended on 23rd May 2007. During that period, 30,000 UK small business signed up or the service and they continue to do so at the rate of around 1,000 per week.

Most people want to see what others have achieved before signing up for a new offering like Office Live. We’ve included details of some UK customer showcase sites at https://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/officelive/FX102204081033.aspx. They’re all great sites but a couple that really stand out are :

• www.web2consultant.com/ , a networking site for business professionals interested in the Web 2.0 phenomenon
• https://www.justsublime.co.uk/ , a mobile cocktail bar service in London, who used Office Live to launch their web presence at no cost and now benefit from a healthy volume of sales leads
• https://www.chilternopticians.com/ , a Buckinghamshire opticians providing information for current and future customers through their website

Similarly, there are several early adopter partners building solutions around Office Live to engage with the small business segment. We’ve listed the UK Partners involved to date at https://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/officelive/FX102051381033.aspx. Again, I’d like to particularly highlight :

Barrie Baxter of Brixx :

“To be involved with Microsoft on this initiative is tremendously exciting for us.  We provide business modelling solutions to large businesses, including many premiership football clubs such as Liverpool FC. The software delivery model is changing rapidly and Office Live helps us to reach and deliver Brixx to the enormous number of small business across the UK”

Tom Keene of NitroSell:

“We’ve really embraced Microsoft's new "Software plus Services" initiative and are using it to deliver Enterprise eCommerce at SMB prices. Office Live now opens the opportunity to offer SMB eCommerce to all customers - something we’re very excited about."

Joe McDermott of Solution Canvas:

“We identified the need for a new type of legal software which is easy to use, flexible and cost effective. Office Live is the perfect platform to deliver our solution, Justia, thanks to its security, remote working and the ability to deliver powerful software without the need for large investment in IT infrastructure."