So I recently went over and checked out the new Microsoft Office Live beta stuff. Interestingly, you can't just create an account and go. You have to go through an approval process. I think I entered something, but I'm not sure. It didn't ask for much information.

So basically, it offers a free top level domain, a web site with web site design tools with 30MB of storage of some amount of transfer, as well as five 2GB email accounts (only accessible via the web -- and it looks like hotmail). This is the free offering. Not too bad, really. It doesn't cost them much but it gives a decent value to small businesses, which is exactly what it's targetting. It doesn't seem like you'll be able to just sign up any ol' account and create a web site with any particular domain.

So then Google just launched their web page creator. It has the design tools for creating pages and linking them together. I guess you don't get to put it on a particular domain. However, they recently also started a program for providing email accounts on your own organizations domain. These particular accounts all have 2GB of storage. Sound familiar? Naturally, they're all free, too.

Sure, Google and Microsoft don't have the same target audiences, but the services are surprisingly similar. How long before Google starts offering some other services, like asset tracking and CRM and other such things?

I'm not using either, but I am curious in checking them out because it's interesting to see all of the new web applications from the companies that spend money on making these things rather than the small one to two person ones that are sweeping the web (and being acquired by the likes of Yahoo and others). ;)

Posted by Shane on February 23, 2006 9:43 PM | Permalink