Microsoft Online Services is part of the software maker's effort to capitalize on the shift by corporate customers to abandon their own in-house computer systems for "cloud computing," a less expensive alternative.SEATTLE (Reuters)
- Microsoft Corp introduced on Wednesday pricing for its suite of
online services targeted at corporate customers and a revenue-sharing
plan to encourage other companies to sell the software company's
products.
The company plans to charge corporate customers a monthly
subscription of $15 per user for a suite of "hosted" software, which
includes e-mail, Web meeting, collaboration and messaging applications
running on Microsoft's computers.
Microsoft Online Services is part of the software maker's effort to
capitalize on the shift by corporate customers to abandon their own
in-house computer systems for "cloud computing," a less expensive
alternative.
The company built its business selling software to run on individual
machines, both computer servers that power entire businesses and
personal computers. But, in recent years, it has invested billion of
dollars in massive data centers, which are the basic infrastructure for
a wide range of Web services.
It has started offering corporate customers the option of having
Microsoft run their e-mail, collaboration or sales programs on the
software giant's computers and delivering those applications over the
Web as a monthly subscription service.
"We're seeing customers, partners and even competitors embrace this
flexible approach to the cloud," Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's
business division, said in a news release.
Microsoft said it signed a number of new online services customers
including Nokia and Danish shipping and oil group AP Moeller Maersk.
The company's software suite is priced at $180 a year for each
subscriber while rival Google Inc's competing product, Google Apps,
which comes with e-mail, messaging and document sharing, costs around
$50 a year per user.
Microsoft argues that its offerings are more advanced than Google
Apps. Technology administrators can manage Microsoft Online Services'
accounts in the same way it deals with accounts of users running on
their own computer systems.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft said it will share 18 percent of
the subscription fees with companies that bring in new customers to the
online service suite in the first year and 6 percent each year over the
life of the contract.
By employing a revenue-sharing model, Microsoft said it can probably
add more customers than it could alone and it could encourage other
companies to build applications to work with its online services.
The company also introduced Deskless Worker Suite, which includes
stripped-down online versions of its Outlook e-mail application and
SharePoint collaboration software for $3 a month per user.
The software suite is targeted at workers such as nurses and factory
employees who have traditionally not been given e-mail accounts or
other forms of productivity software. By offering a low-cost product
that can be accessed through a Web browser, Microsoft believes it can
broaden its base of users.
(Additional reporting by Eric Auchard in San Francisco; Editing by Derek Caney)
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