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Sun, Mar 19 2006

Office Live Experience

I recently used an Office Live Beta invite that I had and tested out the waters. I’ve been playing around with it now for about a week. The experience has been pretty good so far, and I setup and registered for a free domain and hosting package. I’ve been pleased with the features I’ve seen so far and used. The simple fact that a small business could register a domain and get free hosting is a great asset to them.

The full features of the subscription option I chose are:

  • A company domain name
  • A hosted Web site with 30MB of storage
  • Five free e-mail accounts with 2GB of storage each
  • Basic Web analysis tools

My biggest beef so far is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to access the site with a 3rd party web development tool like Dreamweaver. This makes a little bit of sense though as then Microsoft would just be giving away a free domain name and hosting, and not really promoting their soups-to-nuts service. It almost seems to be replacing the basic functionality of Frontpage and combining it with the functionality of Sharepoint services.
The other item is that the free package doesn’t offer much more features than your standard online webpage authoring site. I will say that a nice feature is the integrated e-mail though. This alone makes it very easy for a company to have easy to use e-mail functionality that is web-based and accessible from any internet connection. It amazes me the number of small businesses that have @aol.com or @whatever.com e-mail on their business cards. Even if you don’t want a full-blown website, the cost of domain name and e-mail functionality is so cheap, and worth the impression it provides over an @aol.com or other ISP provided e-mail address.

If anyone would like to try out the Office Live beta, just leave a comment. I’ve got one product key available to someone if they want to use it. Thanks to Jesse.

UPDATE–The free product key has been given away! Thanks everyone!

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Comments

  1. By Neda

    Microsoft Giving Away Free Domains, Related entries in Microsoft, New Products, Internet Explorer, Office, MSN, Home User, Business Tools. Microsoft’s Office Live project and the ability to get a free website domain by joining their service at the lowest tier. […] I filled in all the necessary information, was given a domaine name and email address…….and can I sign in, NOOOO. Why?

  2. By kushagra

    can anyone deliver me an office 2007 product key

  3. By Jason

    Alivia, that would be illegal. I would call Microsoft support and let them know what occurred. I think they may be able to give you a way to find the value on your computer for the key. This highlights why I’ve setup a text file that includes all my license keys for installed software. There’s also a little software app that will collect them from you system, but I can’t remember the name of it right now.

  4. By alivia

    is there any chance someone could give me a product key for ms office 2000, i had to reinstall it and have lost it. aliviaphillips@hotmail.com

  5. By Jason

    I no longer have one available Kris. Sorry.

  6. By KRIS

    where can i get the product key for the office 2007

  7. By Jason

    Hamza, no key needed, read this post
    http://www.office12watch.com/beta-2-downloading-now/

  8. By hamza

    plz i want the product key of microsoft office 2007

  9. By Jason

    None that can be shared Ben. I’m pretty sure this isn’t something that Microsoft would freely distribute.

  10. By Ben

    does anyone have the microsoft office 2007 product key? thanks
    Ben

  11. Trackback
    2216 days ago
    Office 12 Watch » Office Live Really Taking Off

    [...] Ever since Microsoft has nixed the waiting list to use Microsoft Office Live the number of domains that have been registered has risen dramatically. [...]

  12. Trackback
    2220 days ago
    Microsoft Weblog » Microsoft Giving Away Free Domains

    [...] Microsoft Giving Away Free Domains By Jason | Related entries in Microsoft, New Products, Internet Explorer, Office, MSN, Home User, Business Tools I wrote awhile back on the Office 12 Watch blog about Microsoft’s Office Live project and the ability to get a free website domain by joining their service at the lowest tier. [...]

  13. By Jason

    Sorry Dan! Can’t help you there either. Can anyone help?

  14. By Dan Rowley

    I am trying to find a product key for office 2007.
    Could you help me out please.
    Send to: dan@irhino2.com

    Thanks

  15. By Jason

    Sorry HamiD, no more keys available.

  16. By HamiD

    Also I need a Product Key, please send me to
    bluehamid@gmail.com
    Thank you in advance.

  17. By Angel

    Hi, could you mail me the office live beta key? thanks

  18. By Jason

    On it’s way!

  19. By david

    can i have a key please for office live beta, email is: dd123pp@msn.com