Microsoft Office Live provides opportunities for partners and invites solution developers to build industry-specific solutions for small businesses worldwide.

MicrosoftOffice Live, a set of Internet-based services that help small businesses grow and manage their business online, is live today in the United States (http://www.officelive.com) and is available in a free beta version in France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom on Nov. 21, 2006. This new offering provides a wide range of opportunities for Microsoft Corp. partners and solution developers to tap into the most underserved segment of the IT market — small and home-based businesses — especially those with fewer than 10 employees, which represent nearly 20 million businesses in the United States, according to 2005 data from AMI Partners.

Office Live enables solution developers and service providers to cost-effectively drive revenue by targeting and acquiring new customers in the often untapped small-business segment. Partners in the retail and OEM segments can take part in pilot programs and influence the Office Live partner models for the future.

“After a successful beta period when we had more than 160,000 customers in the United States as well as more than 75 partners piloting our solution developer program, we want to expand the opportunity to all solution developers that are today targeting small and home-based businesses,” said Rajesh Jha, corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Live. “Our goal is to offer developers the opportunity to build customized solutions on top of Office Live to address the specific needs of the hundreds of millions of small businesses out there.”

“We are totally committed to partners’ success in this new program. As part of our Microsoft Partner Programs and infrastructure, we will support developers in training, developing, marketing and promoting their solutions to help them succeed in this new software-as-services industry.” Continue At Source

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