Microsoft Charts Its Software Services Strategy and Road Map for Businesses
Company introduces “Online” services and Microsoft Office Live Workspace, solutions that combine client, server and services offerings to deliver connected computing options for people and businesses.
REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 30, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today laid out the next phase in its strategy for online services, offering a road map for new offerings that synthesize client, server and services software for people and businesses. These offerings will combine elements of client-based programs with software that runs large servers and new services delivered over the Internet.
The offerings announced expand Microsoft’s existing portfolio of software plus service solutions — solutions that weave together the best of software and Internet services to provide a new generation of rich, seamless experiences that are personalized, integrated and available online anywhere. This approach gives individuals and organizations greater freedom of choice in how they interact with the people, information and activities they value most.
Microsoft plans to deliver a wide variety of new solutions during the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.”
“Live” services from Microsoft are designed primarily for individuals, business end-users and virtual work groups. Live offerings span entertainment, communication and productivity. These services emphasize ease of use, simplicity of access and flexibility, and are ideally suited for situations where people either don’t have access to professional technical expertise or don’t require high levels of system management.
“Online” services are for organizations with more advanced IT needs where power and flexibility are critical. Online services from Microsoft give businesses the ability to control access to data, manage users, apply business and compliance policy, and meet high availability standards while providing performance, scalability, enhanced security, management features and service-level capabilities to support mission-critical applications and systems. Microsoft is providing business customers with the flexibility to choose between traditional on-premise implementations, services hosted by Microsoft partners and now Online services that reside in Microsoft’s datacenters.
“This new era of connected computing is about empowering people and businesses to balance the power of the Internet with the rich interactivity and high performance of client and server software,” said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “With today’s announcements, we are taking a significant step forward by combining our deep client and server software experience with our strong commitment to delivering flexible services offerings for our wide variety of customers and their unique needs.”
Today Microsoft also unveiled the following:
| • | Microsoft® Office Live Workspace, a new Web-based feature of Microsoft Office that lets people access their documents online and share their work with others |
| • | Microsoft Exchange Labs, a new research and development program for testing next-generation messaging and unified communications capabilities in high-scale environments |
| • | Continued customer and partner support for Microsoft Dynamics™ Live CRM |
| • | The renaming of the Microsoft Office Live hosted small-business service, a service dedicated to addressing key small-business pain points, including core IT services and sales and marketing services, to Microsoft Office Live Small Business |
| • | Microsoft BizTalk® Services, a building block service that enables developers to rapidly and cost-effectively build composite applications, to help enable greater cost efficiencies and thereby open up new business opportunities for enterprises of all sizes |
Raikes further detailed the Microsoft Business Division services strategy and offerings in a Q&A session with Microsoft PressPass, available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/sep07/09-30raikesqa.mspx.
Online Services for Businesses
Online offerings are now available to any enterprise with 5,000 or more seats and include the following new services:
| • | Microsoft Exchange Online |
| • | Microsoft Office SharePoint® Online |
| • | Microsoft Office Communications Online |
The Online services provide businesses and organizations with more time to focus on business-critical projects while working toward meeting their business, compliance and high availability requirements.
Online services will be delivered through Microsoft. Hosted services will be delivered through Microsoft partners as another choice for customers in how they use Microsoft software.
Partners can also add value through subscription fees for solutions built on top of Online services through on-premise integration services and through referral and resell fees.
Office Live Workspace: New Web Functionality for Microsoft Office
Office Live Workspace is among the first entries in the new wave of online services. Available at no charge, Office Live Workspace lets people do the following:
| • | Access documents anywhere. Users can organize documents and projects for work, school and home online, and work on them from almost any computer — even one not connected to the company or school network. They can save more than 1,000 Microsoft Office documents to one place online and access them via the Web.
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| • | Extend Microsoft Office. Users can easily connect to Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint®, Excel® and Outlook® on their PC via the Web. |
Anyone can pre-register for the English language beta of Office Live Workspace today at http://www.officelive.com.
Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM
Today more than 11,000 customers, including 475,000 users, enjoy the benefits of Microsoft Dynamics CRM on-premise and partner-hosted solutions. A new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM code-named “Titan,” which uses a single multitenant code base to deliver on-premise and on-demand deployments, will allow customers to choose the right deployment model for their needs at any point in time.
As part of an early access program that was launched this month, more than 100 customer and partner organizations are already using the new Microsoft Dynamics Live CRM service. Participants in the early access program get a better, more familiar user experience centered on Microsoft Office and Outlook; a lower total cost of ownership compared with traditional on-demand vendors; and the option to switch between on-demand and on-premise models if their business needs change. Those interested in joining can find out more at http://www.crmlive.com.
Microsoft Exchange Labs: Evaluating Next-Generation Messaging and Unified Communications Capabilities in High-Scale Environments
As part of Microsoft’s software plus services strategy, the company is advancing the way it builds, tests and delivers products to meet the needs of customers. Today Microsoft opened Exchange Labs, a new research and development program for testing next-generation messaging and unified communications capabilities in high-scale environments. Initially, the Exchange Labs program will include select universities and school districts. These participating institutions involve high-scale environments where students, faculty, staff and alumni have unique requirements that blend digital work with digital life.
As a generation that uses technology to communicate differently than those before them, this group of users will provide feedback that drives new capabilities to advance the operational efficiency, operational flexibility, anywhere access and advanced protection technologies of Microsoft Exchange Server.
Microsoft BizTalk Services
Today Microsoft introduced an update to BizTalk Services, an early-access offering of a next-generation business integration capability, optimized for cross-organizational integration and high scale. BizTalk Services enables companies to interconnect their businesses systems together, with greatly increased simplicity, via identity and network federation technologies. New types of connected applications can be created simply, where before they were impractical or impossible. BizTalk Services is currently supporting developers and applications for testing and evaluation. Microsoft plans to announce plans on pricing and commercial licensing by the end of the year.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
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