Microsoft Windows Live Web-based storage gets limited beta nod
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A limited number of beta users will be able to test a new online storage offering from Microsoft that provides 500MB of space -- far short of the capacity already offered by some of Microsoft's rivals.
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This morning, BetaNews FileForum was alerted to the availability of the latest release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1, just released from Microsoft.
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Microsoft has updated its Office Live Small Business hosted service with new e-commerce and marketing tools to help small businesses sell their products and services online.The new version of Microsoft&#39;s service to help small businesses build a Web presence, unveiled Monday, now includes Store Manager, a tool aimed at helping small businesses build their own e-commerce sites as well as storefronts on eBay.com to sell their products. Store Manager costs US$39.95 per month.Microsoft also has added a beta version of an e-mail marketing service that allows users to send out regular e-mail newsletters, promotions and updates. The service is free for up to 200 e-mails per month during the beta, the company said.Other new features to Office Live Small Business include custom domain name and business e-mail that is available free for one year and $14.95 per year after that. Through the service, businesses can privately register their domain names and brand up to 100 business e-mail accounts, each with 5G bytes of storage, according to Microsoft.Microsoft also has added Web-site customization tools; support for Firefox 2.0 so Mac users can use Office Live Small Business tools and features; and an improved interface and enhanced search ability in Contact Manager, the service&#39;s contact-management system, to the updated service.Office Live Small Business is Microsoft&#39;s Web-based service aimed at giving small businesses a Web site as well as providing basic management, worker collaboration, accounting, and CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities. Microsoft defines small businesses as those with 50 employees or fewer. The service originally was called Office Live but Microsoft recently changed the name.People often mistake Office Live for a Web-based version of Microsoft&#39;s Office productivity suite, one of the reasons Microsoft added &quot;Small Business&quot; to the service&#39;s name. Eventually, Microsoft does plan to offer features of its Office software online as a service, plans Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates discussed Monday at the Microsoft Office System Developer Conference in San Jose, California.Microsoft said Office Live Small Business currently has nearly 600,000 customers in the countries where it is currently available -- the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Japan.More information about Office Live Small Business can be found on the home page for the service.
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The company offers a suite of online services including e-mail and Web search under its Windows Live brand.
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US software maker Microsoft has announced the general availability of the Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting version 3.0.
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(InfoWorld) - Facebook has quietly launched an open Data Store API beta program that may indicate plans to offer a data storage service to developers. Since Sunday, the Facebook Developer wiki has included a page offering users beta access to a data storage service. However, the wiki does warn users that the page is still in development and that users should make sure that data used in testing the service is properly backed up. Facebook officials could not be reached for comment. The wiki does not elaborate upon how much storage is available to developers as part of the open beta. Further, there is no information provided about pricing or how much capacity the eventual storage service will provide. In his unofficial Facebook blog, Nick ONeill said he doubts that the nascent data storage service will carry no charge. But if it did, he noted that the impact on the site would be tremendous. "I can't imagine them providing this service for free. If they do decide to make the service completely free, Facebook will have created an even bigger revolution," ONeill posted on his blog. ONeill speculates that Facebook's aspirations for entering the storage arena could be to wrestle away business from Amazon's S3 service, or perhaps to even challenge Google Inc.'s considerable user base and popularity.
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Microsoft's newly-released Office Live Workspace is a web app that lets you share documents and edit them right in the browser. It would be a revolutionary release if it didn't require Microsoft Office to be installed on your computer as well.
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Microsoft have made a beta version of their new music store available to the public. The store is entirely browser-based and does not require a separate client like iTunes.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ has released the second beta of a new server aimed at giving users a way to connect and manage Windows Vista PCs, devices, and printers in their homes. Beta 2 of Windows Home Server, which already has been tested by more than 1,000 Microsoft employees, software and hardware partners, is now available, Microsoft said. The company soon plans to extend the product's beta program, and those who want to test beta 2 of the OS can sign up at this Web site. Microsoft also unveiled the Windows Home Server Blog, which will track the progress of the software's development, oin Monday. Additionally, Charlie Kinder, Microsoft general manager of Windows Home Server, also maintains a blog where he will post about the product. Microsoft introduced Windows Home ServerÂ at theÂ Consumer Electronics Show in Las VegasÂ in January. Hewlett-Packard will have the first server built on the OS, a product called the HP MediaSmart Server, later this year. Currently, Microsoft only plans to make Windows Home Server available through OEMs, not sell it directly to consumers.
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Microsoft's Live Labs has debuted a new service to allow users to create and share various types of lists.
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Users can now access Windows Live services through mobile accounts and a single sign-on.
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New service offers 2GB of storage and a copy of Outlook 2003.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is planning to add the ability to develop Windows Live applications to its Visual Studio toolkit as a way to build more of a developer base for its online services platform. The company is adding controls to Visual Studio 2008 that will allow developers to connect Windows Live services to new applications they're building, said Adam Sohn, a director in the Online Services Group at Microsoft. The company is currently testing the technology internally and may also include it in the current 2005 version of Visual Studio, but that is yet to be determined, he said. A public beta of the technology is expected in October or November, Sohn said. Details of the Windows Live toolkit first appeared online a public interview posted on the LiveSide blog with Angus Logan, a Microsoft technical program manager. Microsoft Monday confirmed that the interview was done at the Mix U.K. '07 conference last week. In the interview, Logan indicated that Microsoft would discuss the technology at the DevConnections conference in Las Vegas in early November. Windows Live is the brand name for set of Web-based services -- such as search, instant-messaging, e-mail, blogging, and photo-sharing -- Microsoft offers, but the company also considers Windows Live a development platform in the same way its Windows OS and Office applications are a platform, Sohn said. Microsoft has made APIs for those services available on its Windows Live developer site. Microsoft has been savvy over the years in leveraging its large developer base to bolster new technologies and help the company compete in areas where it does not have first-mover advantage, and the area of online services is no different. Microsoft is chasing Google for online advertising dollars and hopes to use Windows Live services to compete. Microsoft also charges $.025 per user per year for developers that use Windows Live services in applications that have more than 1 million unique users per month, Sohn said. Sohn said that while the business case for growing the developer base for the Windows Live platform is obviously important, Microsoft also hopes to encourage the development of cutting-edge Web applications to help the industry as a whole promote more interesting user experiences on the Web. "Over time if the industry is doing better, we're going to do better as well," he said.
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LIVE WEBCAST(Source: 3PAR) Join us for this live webcast and learn first-hand how you can get more out of your enterprise storage environment. This webcast will premier on Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at 2:00 PM EDT
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Microsoft&#39;s long-planned new file system is likely still many years away from being a part of the company&#39;s server operating system.
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PC World: Businesses don&#39;t have to dump Windows to test drive free or low-price applications whose use may improve the bottom line.
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Microsoft today launched a beta version of its desktop search tool. This tool is ment to find documents, e-mail and other files stored on your own HDD.