Office Live beta to launch in the UK on 21 November

Test drive the features of the new suite

16 November 2006 16:06 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Microsoft Office Live is now available on a full release in the US, and is coming out as a public beta on 21 November in the UK as well as Japan, France, and Germany.

Office Live is what Microsoft calls “a complete, affordable set of Internet-based software and services that help small businesses attract new customers, keep in touch with existing customers, generate repeat business, and easily manage their business while on the go”.

Designed mainly for small business, Office Live is designed as an open platform so that others can customise or build applications designed to work with the software.

As a result of the US beta and feedback from around 160,000 customers, Office Live has added new features. New features of the suite include adManager beta, which lets small business buy keywords on Live.com and MSN to drive traffic to their sites and Business Contact Manager, which keeps contacts and sales information in one place and makes it accessible.

Three levels of service will be made available. Office Live Basics is a collection of free services; Office Live Essentials adds contact management tools to the basic range for $20 a month; Office Live Premium makes available additional online business apps and collaboration tools for $40.

Full tags

Software, PC software, Office software, Microsoft