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By Andy McCue, 15 November 2006 15:45

NEWS

Microsoft will launch the free beta version of its Office Live web and email hosting services for small businesses in the UK next week.

The Office Live beta had been due to launch this week but has been delayed due to technical issues around localising the product for regions outside the US.

The US version of Office Live, which has been in beta since February of this year and now has more than 190,000 small businesses using it, officially comes out of beta and goes live on 15 November. Microsoft said the product is aimed at new start-ups and small companies with fewer than 10 employees.

There are three versions of Office Live, ranging from the free, ad-supported, entry-level Basic offering to the monthly subscription Premium version that comes with extra features and without ads. All versions will be free during the beta trial period.

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Office Live Basic includes a company domain name, 25 2GB email accounts, instant messaging, an online calendar and a website with 500MB of file storage space. Office Live Premium will cost around £22.99 plus VAT a month and will include a 2GB website, online workspaces for 20 users, 50 2GB email accounts, a business contact manager and an Outlook connector to synch emails and contacts with a desktop version of Outlook.

Microsoft said it will back up customers' Office Live websites once a day.

Tim Kimber, product marketing manager for small businesses at Microsoft, said the aim is to add transactional features for Office Live websites further down the line, and added that businesses in the US have been adding a PayPal button to conduct online sales.

"That's on the roadmap for the future, some kind of ecommerce capability," he said.

Rival Google earlier this year launched the online Google Docs, with Spreadsheets following last month, but Microsoft's Kimber said Microsoft's focus groups had shown very little demand from businesses for online versions of Word and Excel.

Microsoft's Live strategy was first unveiled a year ago by Ray Ozzie, with the aim of eventually launching 20 different online business applications and web services.