Microsoft Online Services Are Such a Trial
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News Commentary. Who but Microsoft would use a major European trade show to launch new trial versions of products rather than the actual products themselves? |
[Editor's Note: I'm playing catchup from the stomach flu. Most March 2 posts will be shorter than usual and more response to current events than my more typical forward-looking analyses.]
It's the newest spin on vaporware. The services are real, but it's the global trial with real news substance. I laughed so much at the announcement, it took several hours to write this short post.
Drumroll, please. Quoted directly from the press release: "The Business Productivity Online Suite, part of Microsoft Online Services, is now available for trial to businesses of all sizes in 19 countries." Call yourself trial lucky if living in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom or the United States.
Microsoft sure knows how to make friends on the Continent. Last week, the company filed a patent infringement complaint against Dutch-based TomTom. Now, it's CeBit 2009, where Microsoft's big, bad-ass announcement is availability of Online Services trials in 15 European countries (counting United Kingdom).
Could it be because of the European Union's more recent antitrust investigation, Microsoft executives have got trials on the brain? Perhaps it's some strange geek humor. You've got a trial for us, so we've one for you.
Services will actually be available, or so Microsoft claims, in April. Maybe they just weren't ready to launch at CeBit, so Microsoft put in the get-it-by-trial placeholder so that something could be announced.
Pricing hasn't changed since Microsoft launched Exchange and SharePoint service back in November for the U.S. market. OK, so Microsoft has restated prices in euros and pounds, 2.56 and 2.01, respectively; monthly fees for Diskless Worker. Is it my math or current exchange rates? The euros price works out to U.S. $3.22 and the pounds to U.S. $2.82
Here's a monthly fee-per-user breakdown, in U.S. dollars:
- Exchange (ala carte): $10
- SharePoint (ala carte): $7.25
- Communications (ala carte): $2.50
- Live Meeting (ala carte): $4.50
- Business Productivity Online Standard Suite: $15
- Exchange Hosted Archive: $8.60
- Exchange Diskless Worker: $2
- SharePoint Diskless Worker: $2
- Diskless worker Online: $3
- Dynamics CRM Online: $39
You would be reading a less sarcastic post had Microsoft actually announced the launch of the services in 19 countries. Economic crisis is sweeping the globe, PC shipments are posting record declines and IT spending is slowing everywhere. Hosted online services offer companies predictable monthly fees, with access to the newest technologies and less management hassle.
Microsoft should have done better than offer trials during one of the few remaining big trade shows.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Related Posts:
- How Grim Is Microsoft's Future?, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2009
- It's Stormy Weather When Clouds Collide, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 17, 2008
- Microsoft's Server Stack Gets Higher, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 30, 2008
- Microsoft's Extinction-Level Event, Microsoft Watch, July 8, 2008
- Microsoft's Suite Response to Google, Partners, Microsoft Watch, July 8, 2008
- Microsoft Gets Hosted, Microsoft Watch, March 3, 2008
- Office Goes Live and Online, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 1, 2007
- Microsoft Software: Rent Me, Microsoft Watch, July 20, 2007
Comments (7)
Yes, Microsoft Online services is such a vaporware non existing service, that has made GlaxoSmithKline to buy 500,000 seats, swiching from IBM Lotus Notus and Google alternatives...
That makes MIcrosoft's online seats to 750,000 seats...all by BTW using vaporware software...
Posted by evan | March 2, 2009 1:54 PM
We welcome the move by Microsoft to rollout their BPOS trial beyond the US. This validates the model that leading service providers have been architecting for several years and will take the online services market beyond the traditional early adopters that have been the only takers until now.
But, while Microsoft and Google are slogging it out on price, established Service Providers like Cobweb will continue to do what they do best - focus on the customer need, offer a wide-range of services, deliver great customer service with personal support, and ensure our resellers get what they really want - decent margin and customer ownership.
Read more detailed thoughts on the Cobweb Blog, including more on the "Power of Choice" and how we're part of this offering as a Microsoft Gold Partner for Hosted Solutions
Posted by Dan Germain | March 2, 2009 3:48 PM
" Who but Microsoft would use a major European trade show to launch new trial versions of products rather than the actual products themselves? "
Oh, I don't know... beta-king Google?
Posted by Jim | March 2, 2009 3:57 PM
I sure do miss Mary Jo.
These services do work, Microsoft is providing early access (beta) and I've noticed a drastic improvement of full release quality from dare I say "Microsoft".
Time for you to joing SJVN (or is it SVJN, OK its Steve of LinuxWatch fame).
Speaking of Steve, I wanted to know if this was finally the year of the Linux Desktop :-)
Posted by LeeVi | March 2, 2009 4:20 PM
@Joe "...Microsoft's big, bad-ass announcement is availability of Online Services trials in 15 European countries (counting United Kingdom)".
Seems that Joe's discovered that the UK is part of Europe. Joe, that's been so ever since the invasions of the Romans, Danes, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and finally the Normans.
Also its not 15 countries who can access the trial, its 19, the non European countries being, Canada, Japan, New Zealand (??) and the United States. I'd also point out that Norway and Switzerland are NOT members of the EU.
As to that they made the announcement outside of the US, that's called globalisation Joe, that's G, L, O ....
Posted by RightPaddock | March 2, 2009 8:26 PM
Re: "Speaking of Steve, I wanted to know if this was finally the year of the Linux Desktop"
Hmmmm. For me, the year of the Linux Desktop was back in 2005 when I finally jumped to Fedora Core 3. OOo was relatively crappy at that time, so I couldn't make the full leap.
Then I installed Fedora Core 5, and wow! One entire year of 24x7x365 up-time. (As much a testament to our building's power grid as to the stability of Linux and Gnome). No viruses, no defragmentation neeed. OOo was usable enough to read MS Word .doc files fairly well, but I still wasn't sold on it as a word processor. For my own documentation, I stayed with LaTeX or plain text.
Then Ubuntu 7 and it leaped past XP. Way past XP. OK, not from a full application compatibility standpoint of course. But playing games is a no-no in business anyway, and I'm a programmer and find that inventing software that is used around the world is the ultimate computer game anyway. Solid, smooth, fast, responsive... bash rocks. GUI system management was better than Win XP. Started to use OOo and it was mature enough to be much better than Word. Not on a feature-war basis, but more solid and much better implementation of style hierarchies. 99.99999% of Word users do NOT use style hierarchies, and so they aren't even using the minimum functions required for the proper design and maintenance of a long-lived document.
Now on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and it continues to amaze me. Updates are smooth, and rarely require a reboot (yeah, a kernel update kinda does require reboot, but very few of those). OOo 2.4 is a joy and very dependable. Inkscape just flat-out rocks. I've suffered with many versions of Corel from 2.5 on OS/2 through 3, 5, 8, and 9, and they just got buggier and slower and more cumbersome. Inkscape is not an Illustrator killer, perhaps, but for my use and talent it is breathtakingly wonderful. Likewise for the Gimp. And the latest Emacs has some surprising XML capabilities that lets it nip at the heels of the vaunted (and hugely expensive) Altova XML Spy. And cause the XML Spy users to gasp in awe at what the "lowly" Emacs is capable of doing!
And no virus protection is needed. No defragmentation is needed for disk drives. And it doesn't get slow or leak even if it's been up for months since the last reboot.
Two disclaimers: 1. This is a sample size of one: me! But it's fact, not generalization, so that perhaps mitigates the small sample size. And 2, it does require a bit more learning than XP and may still not be for the average Joe and Jane. But then again, maybe that's why the average Joe and Jane are getting laid off in droves and I still have a job and stay in demand.
Posted by Philosopher | March 2, 2009 10:09 PM
Hi Philosopher!
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Great fan of Ubuntu (since the family get on very well with it) I didnt stick with the LTS and jumped on the 8.10 ver when it was released. I do have alot of love for Ubuntu, however Im personally a Gentoo user and for anyone with experience of Linux I believe you really cant get any better.
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Funny you should mention about the no virus checker or defrag since I currently typing an article about that (and other subjects) which the owner of Windows7Center wants to publish.
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Im not a OO user since I dont require an entire office solution and personally champion AbiWord which has served me well for many years!
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Can I please add my positive experiences of Ubuntu to yours Philospher!
Posted by Goblin | March 5, 2009 2:32 PM