Microsoft Live aims for smallest businesses

Windows Live and Office Live will be funded by advertising for the time being

Microsoft has been detailing its plans for the Windows Live and Office Live products announced on 1 November. 

Charles Fitzgerald, general manager for platform strategies at Microsoft, told vnunet.com that the first target for Office Live would be ultra-small businesses consisting of 10 people or fewer.

The service will be entirely funded by advertising for the time being.

"The initial target is sub-10 employee businesses, as they tend to be people who don't have the IT skills, and then to extend that to other small businesses, " said Fitzgerald.

"Office Live at the basic level will be advertising supported, with 25MB of web space at no charge. There'll be no excuse for any business in the world not to have a website."

For companies that do not want advertising on their site, a subscription charge can be levied instead.

Windows Live will be released shortly and Office Live will be officially launched early next year.

Patches and updates will be released on the fly but there will be more general platform refreshes every three to four months.

The service will be configured around Internet Explorer but other "advanced" browsers will be able to access many of the functions of the two services, according to Microsoft.