Microsoft expands its Online hosted services trials

Microsoft is making trial versions of its growing family of Microsoft-hosted services available to users outside of the United States.

Microsoft is allowing customers of all sizes to sign up for trials of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), its Communications Online enterprise instant-messaging service and its BPOS Deskless Worker Suite, company officials announced on March 2 at CeBIT 2009. Final versions of these services will be available outside the U.S. in April, 2009, Microsoft officials said.

The 18 newly added markets for Microsoft's Online services are: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom

A quick refresher on Microsoft's hosted services: Microsoft has been rolling out over the past-year-plus a number of services that it is hosting itself. The current family includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Communications Online and BPOS (a bundle of these three, plus Live Meeting); CRM Online; and a couple of client-side offerings -- the Exchange Deskless Worker, SharePoint Deskless Worker and the Bbusiness Productivity Online Deskless Worker suite. The company is believed to be readying a number of other Microsoft-hosted Online services, including Forefront Online and possibly some kind of System Center Online services.

Microsoft also touted a customer win -- with Glaxo SmithKline for 100,000 seats of its hosted Online wares -- at CeBIT, as well.

"We've gone from 0 to 60 in the past 12 months" in the services space, said Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Information Worker Product Management Group.

Capossela said Microsoft has signed up more than 1,500 resellers, at the rate of about 100 per week, to sell these Microsoft-hosted services. A number of Microsoft partners have balked at Microsoft's entrance to the hosted-services market, claiming that Microsoft is competing with its allies.

Update: Here's how Microsoft packages and prices its Online services. A spokesperson sent the following information:

The full suite is $15 per/user per month; the breakdown for each product is:

* $10 per user/month for Exchange Online * $7.25 user/month for SharePoint Online * $2.50 user/month for Office Communications Online * $4.50 user/month for Office Live Meeting * $2 per user/month for Exchange Online Deskless Worker * $2 per user/month for SharePoint Online Deskless Worker

Users can purchase most of these services separately (with at least one exception: SharePoint Online Deskless Worker requires customers to have a SharePoint Server or SharePoint Online).