M$ Office live

[Pondlife]

Anyone tried this?

http://officelive.microsoft.com/

Supposedly free hosting.... Not sure about the "Office Live Basics is offered at no charge through an advertising-supported model. Microsoft is allowing a select number of advertisers to place small, unobtrusive ads on a handful of member pages. Please know that our advertisers' content will not appear on the Web site you create for your own company. " though.

What do the panel think?

[TheMonkey]

This is Microsoft trying to turn themselves into a services company as they have finally realised they can't make lots of money by selling boxed software.

It will just about work, but will be about 10 miles behind google.

People have got to STOP relying on services and move back to the boxed software model. The entire IT industry is going to collapse with this "sustained cash" model.

[Bovvered]

I can see the bank I'm at hosting all their documents on Google's Writely server. Not.

[Bovvered]

Hey! I think I'll store my VAT return on a Live server! Not.

[HankWangford]

earnings

This is Microsoft trying to turn themselves into a services company as they have finally realised they can't make lots of money by selling boxed software.

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnin...rel_q1_06.mspx
Revenue of 9.74billion, seems ok to me

[TheMonkey]

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnin...rel_q1_06.mspx
Revenue of 9.74billion, seems ok to me

Yeah but people are not upgrading as much as they used to. If you look, you can see the prices rising to keep the revenue stable.

[Pondlife]

The original question was really about whether anyone had any experience of it for hosting a business website and whether you were likely to become an advertising board for other companies.

[TheMonkey]

The original question was really about whether anyone had any experience of it for hosting a business website and whether you were likely to become an advertising board for other companies.

I wouldn't bother. £20 for hosting for a year. £0 for a template from www.oswd.org and 30 minutes adding some content is better!