Office Live: Better Off Dead?

Last month I killed Office Live in an act of self defense, after repeated access problems and attempts to move my domain to another registrar. Judging from the comments to that post, there's an Office Live killing spree going on. Not surprisingly, Microsoft wants to put an end to the wanton killing.

This afternoon, Baris Cetinok and I did a postmortem on Office Live, which is when I learned that maybe it wasn't quite dead. So, I'm considering testing the small business service again, hopefully with more, ah, lively results.

Cetinok, who is director of project management and marketing for Office Live, acknowledged some of the problems with the service and explained some of the changes Microsoft plans to make. First, the log-in issue that I and other Office Live users experienced.

"We did have some on-and-off hiccups with our Live ID authentication system," Cetinok said. Transition to Internet Explorer 7 also caused problems, particularly for people using beta versions, he added.

Internet Explorer is the only browser supported by Office Live. During sign-in, Firefox users receive warning: "In order to use Microsoft Office Live, you will need to have Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later running on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Microsoft Windows Server 2003."

Cetinok also addressed the topic of domain registrars. In late spring or earlier summer, Microsoft will dramatically change how Office Live handles domains and registrars. The company plans to rush the change out ahead of the next version of Office Live, instead of waiting.

Right now, domains are locked to an Office Live account. I had wanted to transfer the domain registered through Office Live from Microsoft's registrar in Australia to my own in the United States. I learned that only by canceling Office Live could I gain access to the domain. So I killed off the Office Live account.

I registered my first domain in 1995, and I have lots of experience with domain hosting. Microsoft's approach made no sense to me.

Microsoft took the account-tied-to-domain approach as a means of simplifying the process for small businesses, Cetinok explained. Microsoft would handle everything, including the annual domain re-registration. Otherwise, someone might have an account with Office Live but lose the domain.

"We did some things that aren't the best for high-end users," Cetinok said, referring to the approach.

As a user, I wanted to transfer my domain, because my registrar offers private registration. It's common practice for spammers to mine Whois records for valid e-mail addresses. Private registration keeps personal information out of Whois.

Cetinok acknowledged the oversight and promised remedy. "We've been thinking about adding private registration as an add-on, so our customers can pick it," he said.

Registrar is a stickier issue than domain registered with an Office Live account. Unlike most other Webhosts, domain hosting with Office Live means transferring to Microsoft's registrar. The more common approach, known as domain redelegation, is to have the managing registrar associate the domain with a Webhost. My registrar is also a Webhost, and I have the option to use its hosting services or not; there is no tie in, like with Office Live.

"In the U.S., we took that gamble, because only 50 percent of small businesses have a Web site," Cetinok said. Microsoft also took on a cost burden, with respect to paying the registrar for the domain and assuming the cost of support calls. The approach "simplifies the management for the user going forward, but it's benefits versus cost," he said.

The cost comes when the transfers fail, which is commonplace. The success rate is only "about 50-60 percent," Cetinok said. "The reason Google and Yahoo don't do [registrar transfer] is because it greatly reduces support costs." While more difficult for some small businesses to manage, domain redelegation has 90 percent success rate.

With the planned spring-to-early summer changes, "we want to divorce domain name picking from getting an account with Office Live," Cetinok promised. The new mechanism will work similar to other Webhosts, where the user's account is attached to an e-mail address. When I used Yahoo as Webhost, my Yahoo ID logged into the account.

Microsoft already is along the path to the change, as all Office Live accounts require a Windows Live ID, which is an e-mail address.

The changes, while all promising, are still in the future. Resumption of testing would mean my tying a domain to an Office Live account and exposing an e-mail address to spammers. Do I really want Office Live alive or is it better off dead?