Microsoft Office Live (beta)
Want a free Domain name and hosting service provided by a “trusted” company? Then head over to http://officelive.microsoft.com/ . Apparently, Microsoft is giving away free domain and hosting solutions to try their Office Live. You actually have 3 choices.
Live Basics which is free during and after beta.
Live Collaboration which gives you the ability to manage customers, employees and projects and in which Microsoft will charge you $29.95/month after beta. However, you don’t get email accounts with this nor a web page. It’s basically a collaboration tool for you and your business.
Live Essentials which provides both Basics and Collaboration features plus more (25 GB bandwidth, 50 email accounts at 2 GB each, etc…)
If you opt out, you can still transfer the domain name you registered to your chosen hosting provider after 2 months of using Office Live.
The catch? Nothing really. You just have to be a resident of the US with a valid credit card. Why the credit card? Microsoft says they want to eliminate the prospect of non-business users signing up and scammers using their services to do what they do best. They charge you $1 but would be returned to you after they validate your address and your credit. For non-US people, they say that they’re going to provide beta services late 2006 but not really sure what those services might be.
So if you are qualified, why not try the Live Basics package and start creating your own business website. Although I’m sure that a lot of people would be signing up for their personal non-business related sites.
