Office Live Gets More Lively

In January, Baris Cetinok, director of project management and marketing for Office Live, said that domain redelegation would headline a number of updates planned for spring and early sumer. We spoke after I had to cancel an Office Live account to get direct access to domain registrar. I had wanted to change registrars.

The redelegation change is important for Microsoft and Office Live customers. For subscribers, Microsoft has eased account signup and setup for businesses with existing domains. Under the old process, people signing up for Office Live would have to transfer to Microsoft's designated registrar, Melbourne IT.

"With redelegation, your domain is still with your registrar," said Dean Nicolls, senior product manager for Office Live. Microsoft offers up "registrar specific instructions" for pointing Office Live servers.

The previous process of transferring domains had a high failure rate—typically 40 percent to 50 percent—and took as long as several weeks. For small businesses looking to get online right away, the process could be upsetting. Domain redelegation is usually as quick as 24 hours, and the "success rate is over 95 percent," Nicolls said.

Microsoft benefits from reductions in costs, administration hassles and customer dissatisfaction with failed domain transfers.

However, Microsoft didn't change its tight role for small businesses that register a new domain when setting up an Office Live account. The process designates Melbourne IT as the registrar and makes Microsoft the go-between to subscribers' domains.

Microsoft chose the tightly administrated approach to simplify Office Live account creation for small businesses without Web sites. The company estimates that only about half of U.S. small businesses have Web sites.

While the registrant retains ownership of the domain, there is no access to it other than through Microsoft—and the company offers essentially no way for the subscriber to manipulate the domain record. As I learned in December, there is no way to transfer registrar without canceling the Office Live account.

"That's still not possible," Nicolls said. "If you're using Office Live services, the registrar will be Melbourne IT."

The limitation is particularly problematic for companies looking for private registration, which would remove their information from public WHOIS databases. One common spammer tactic is to sift through WHOIS records for valid e-mail addresses.

"We definitely are looking to add private name registration," Nicolls said. But he could offer no timetable for when, or even if, Microsoft would make such a service available.

By the way, I have yet to transfer my domain from Melbourne IT. ICANN rejected the first request, because the domain had been registered within 60 days of the request. On Saturday, I initiated another transfer, which failed because of a wrong authentication key.

Best Buy Buys Into Office Live
Another service is opening up Best Buy as a major Office Live sales and service partner.

"We formed a partnership with Best Buy," Nicolls said. "We've engaged with their small business organization."

The group is responsible for, among other things, Geek Squad.

"On the floor, their floor staff has been trained on Office Live," Nicolls said. "You can purchase Office Live directly from Best Buy, either in the store or from Geek Squad."

Best Buy isn't Microsoft's only partner play. The Office Live Marketplace showcases products developed for the service. While Microsoft claims more than 100 partners, for now, only about 25 of them have products in the marketplace.

The focus of products tends to be more for verticals, which makes loads of sense for the highly fragmented small business market.

Microsoft built Office Live around SharePoint technologies, with tight integration to other Microsoft products. Office Live subscribers can create their Web sites using Microsoft's SharePoint Designer, while SharePoint developers can extend site capabilities.

Microsoft maintains the Office Live Developer Portal and recently updated the Office Live Developer Guide. The guide identifies three Office Live opportunities for developer products: selling goods, providing services and sharing information.

Besides the United States, Office Live also is available in France, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom.

Related Posts:

• Wanted: Dead or Live, March 2, 2007
• Ray Ozzie Speaks Out, Feb. 27, 2007
• Microsoft Office EnLivens, Jan. 16, 2007
• Office Live: Better Off Dead?, Jan. 12, 2007
• Why I Killed Office Live, Dec. 29, 2006