By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
Last year, Microsoft quietly announced that it was selling Microsoft-hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and Office Communications Server to companies with more than 5,000 employees. Monday, the company announced that it will offer the same services to companies of all sizes.
Beginning Monday, Microsoft will open a beta test version of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Communications Server Online to companies of all sizes. A final release of the services is due in the second half of this year, with more Microsoft-hosted services expected later.
"The combination of software plus services gives customers advanced choice and flexibility in how they access and manage software," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said in a statement. "With Microsoft Online Services, businesses can deploy software as a subscription service, from servers they manage on-site, or a combination of the two, depending on their specific needs."
The online services all come with Online Administration Center, a Web-based console that lets companies manage and configure the offerings. Admins can download a small tool to run on a local directory server that's configured with both online and server credentials and synchronizes accounts from both every 24 hours.
Microsoft has broken its online services into two categories, Live and Online. Live services are for individuals or small companies that don't need extensive corporate management and configuration capabilities, whereas Online services are more about "providing enterprise users with new choice" for how to use Microsoft products, John Betz, Microsoft director of product management for business online services, said in an interview.
The push into online services is an important one for Microsoft, which hopes to stave off efforts by Google and others to put a dent in Microsoft's software business by offering online service equivalents to many applications that have long been Microsoft stalwarts, including e-mail and productivity apps. Microsoft also hopes to compete with companies like Salesforce that have made a name for themselves by offering solely online services.
Microsoft is also now detailing how it will sell its online services to businesses, though it still isn't releasing its prices. Businesses will be able to buy the services on a per user, per month license called a User Subscription License. That way, they don't have to pay for licenses they aren't using over a long period of time. Customers that already have enterprise Client Access Licenses or Software Assurance for the products they want to subscribe to as services will get significant discounts on those services.
Though Microsoft says it anticipates it will be able to deliver e-mail as an online service cheaper than it does today as a server-based product in terms of total cost of ownership, the company says it doesn't anticipate a shift online services being an economics-based decision. Instead, Betz said, Microsoft hopes to sell its online services as an opportunity to let Microsoft do the grunt work in order to allow IT departments to focus on more strategic initiatives.
More online services are coming. "In the future, customers and partners should expect to see this kind of choice and flexibility for all of Microsoft's software and server products," Gates said. Microsoft has a desktop management service in incubation with a few companies, including Energizer, and has previously mentioned the possibility of enterprise security and business intelligence services.
However, there are some things that Microsoft won't be offering as services for the time being. For example, Betz said that highly customized work that involves line of business application integration, as well as integration with corporate PBXes for phone calling, are difficult to do today as services. That means Office Communications Server Online won't offer voice calling.
Microsoft also announced this week that it has a number of new enterprise customers for its online services, including Coca-Cola Enterprises, which is using all three services. Other significant new clients include Autodesk, Blockbuster and Ingersoll-Rand.
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