Office 365 http://office365.microsoft.com/en-US/online-services.aspx
I have not updated this blog for a while due to the fact that Microsoft is releasing a new service called Office 365, and as Community Council Member we have been allowed an early peek into this service. For those who have not heard, Office 365 will be replacing Office Live Small Business: http://ask.officelive.com/smallbusiness/blogs/team/archive/2010/10/19/announcing-microsoft-office-365-and-the-future-of-office-live-small-business-olsb.aspx. This transition will be occurring in approximately a year (the end of 2011 beginning 2012).
This new service is a cloud hosting service for Webhosting; Microsoft Office Web Apps (Word, Power Point, and Excel); Microsoft Exchange (Outlook - email); Microsoft SharePoint Online; and Microsoft Lync Online (IM, online meeting, ect.). Office 365 comes at a price though, compared to Office Live Small Business which is free, Office 365 will cost $6 dollars per user, per month ($72 dollars a year for one user), this does not include a domain. The features that Office 365 has may be more that what the average Office Live Small Business user has a need for. From my experience most OLSB customers simply want a website for their business as well as email (that works!).
So will it be worth it to transition to the new service? That depends on what you need, if you fit the "standard" OLSB user I have mentioned above it might be worth considering finding a better host. From what I have seen so far Office 365 has the same web design tools as OLSB; and actually at the moment, the Office 365 tools actually have less features then the OLSB tools, though supposedly these features are temporarily disabled in the beta. If however you are a user who needs a little bit more then Office 365 may be just what you are looking for and at $6 dollars per user per month, it is a hard price to beat!
