Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Microsoft sets pricing, fee sharing for services
By siliconindia
|
Wednesday, 09 July 2008, 19:30 IST
Seattle: U.S. IT giant Microsoft has introduced pricing for its suite of online services targeted at corporate customers. The company has also come out with a revenue-sharing plan to encourage other companies to sell its 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.
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 to 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.
Microsoft claims that its offerings are more advanced than Google Apps. Technology administrators can manage Microsoft Online Services' accounts in the same way they deal with accounts of users running on their own computer systems.
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 six percent each year over the life of the contract.
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.
