A Little Piece of Microsoft Aids Small Business

By DAVID POGUE

So Microsoft is making a hostile bid for Yahoo.

Has it come to this? Is Microsoft’s innovation engine so dead that the only way it can grow is to buy other companies?

It’s sad, in a way, because under the right circumstances, Microsoft, or pieces of it anyway, are still capable of fresh ideas and polished work. The company itself may be a massive fallen redwood tree, slowly rotting in an old-growth forest. But sprouting from that decaying Windows/Office log are little green start-up shoots. They prove that even if the bureaucracy has made Microsoft top-heavy and leaden, innovation still thrives in pockets.

Nowhere is this old Microsoft/new Microsoft dichotomy more apparent than in the company’s suite of online tools for small businesses, which reopened Monday in an improved 2.0 version (www.smallbusiness.officelive.com).

What makes Office Live Small Business so compelling is its sharp focus on a single problem: that half the small businesses in America, and 70 percent of one-person businesses, don’t even have Web sites. Obviously, the percentage that exploits Internet marketing tools like e-mail newsletters, search engine ads and online stores is even lower.

Suppose you’re among them. Suppose you train dogs, or translate documents, or retouch photos, or sell knickknacks on eBay, or make seashell jewelry. And right now, your idea of a marketing plan is taping up fliers in the grocery store.

How are you supposed to get a Web site? Who will design it, and who will host it? Who do you pay to place search engine ads for you, and how will you know if they’re working? How do you send out e-mail newsletters without being blocked as a spammer? And how will you know if that effort is paying off?

And above all: how much is all this going to cost you?

Office Live Small Business (O.L.S.B.) is a centralized Web site where you can set up all of those small-businessy things — a Web site, an online ad campaign, e-mail promotions, in-company communications — all by yourself, even if you’re not very technical. For the first time, these big-league tools are within your reach, partly because you don’t have to hire somebody to set them up and partly because many of them are free.

The changes from the original 2006 version are apparent immediately. Internet Explorer used to be the required Web browser to set up your online presence, but now Firefox is O.K., too. And that means you can take advantage of Office Live even if you use (gasp) a Macintosh. That’s the New Microsoft, baby.

A credit card is no longer required to get started, either. You can start playing with the service by supplying nothing more than a name, e-mail address and ZIP code.

There are no longer three different tiers of Office Live service, with different fees and different features; that’s the Old Microsoft way (see also: Windows Vista). Instead, there’s just one free service that includes a wide assortment of useful tools, plus a handful of á la carte extras.

The freebies begin with a Web site for your business, complete with 500 megabytes of storage. Simple tools let you design clean-looking pages, with your choice of color and design themes, logo and photos, links, and so on, even if you have absolutely no experience doing this sort of thing. (You can see the results at, for example, whineranddiner.net, murphyoutdoors.com and ameliascakes.com — real sites created by actual Office Live users.)

Microsoft hosts your site free, and also offers free analysis tools. With one click, you can see a graph of your site’s traffic over time; where the visitors are coming from (for example, search engines or links from other sites); and even which Web browsers they’re using.

A number of useful Office Live features that used to cost you money are now free. For example, only paid subscribers enjoyed the ability to synchronize their Office Live address books and calendars with Outlook, so they could work on them when not connected to the Internet. That’s now free to everyone.

Similarly, if you wanted to design your own Web pages (or hire someone to do it) instead of using Microsoft’s canned page designs, you used to have to pay; now that’s free, too. As a bonus, you can now remove the small Office Live logo from your site — a welcome change.

The old fee-based tiers also included a long list of features for the technically inclined: list managers that help you track employees, resources, reservations, and so on; project and time trackers; a document-sharing module; and collaboration tools for internal company discussion. Those are all free now.

Unfortunately, Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away.

The most famous feature of the original Office Live was the free domain-name registration. That is, your free Web site could have any dot-com name you liked — BobsFleabag.com, for example — and you also got 25 e-mail addresses to match (sales@bobsfleabag.com, info@bobsfleabag.com and so on).

Those unheard-of perks are gone; after the first year, Microsoft now charges $15 a year for those custom domain names and e-mail addresses (at least for new members). If you decline, your free Web site will be stuck with a clunky name like bobsfleabag.accommodations.officelive.com.

Nor is that the only way Microsoft intends to make money from this service.

For example, there are small ads on the Office Live Web site (the one with the tools — not the site you create). Because these ads are aimed at you, the small-business owner, they’re not especially bothersome, for the same reason that people don’t mind, say, ads for cameras in a photography magazine. Meanwhile, Microsoft can charge advertisers more for these ads because they are, again, so targeted.

Office Live offers an easy-to-use e-mail marketing system that includes newsletter design and address database. You can also track the results of your e-mail initiatives: how many people opened your mail, as well as how many clicked a link in it. Microsoft even does the e-mail sending for you, so your e-mail won’t get blocked by your own Internet provider as spam. That’s all free during the current testing phase, but Microsoft will charge a monthly fee after that.

Ditto for the terrific build-your-own-online-store feature. You get a traditional online shopping cart, integration with eBay, and auto-calculations of shipping and even taxes (according to the buyer’s state). But you’ll pay $40 a month for this high-end luxury, plus a $30 monthly PayPal fee if you want to accept payment by credit card right on your Web site. (Otherwise, your customers will be shunted off to PayPal.com to complete the transaction.) PayPal charges about 3 percent of each sale either way.

Finally, of course, you have to pay to place ads in the results of Web search sites; here again, Office Live tracks the results, making it crystal clear which of your ads are producing the best results.

This, though, may be the goofiest part of Office Live. You can place ads only on Microsoft’s search sites and Ask.com, which together represent less than 8 percent of search engine popularity. If you’re going to advertise, you’d almost certainly prefer the exposure of the Big Two — Yahoo and Google — but they’re not available through Office Live.

Now, plenty of companies sell similar services individually: Web hosting, for example, or online marketing. But Microsoft claims to have no competition for Office Live’s concept. Nobody else offers a complete one-stop self-contained unified Internet toolkit for small businesses — especially not at these prices.

The result is exciting for two reasons. First, Office Live Small Business gives the nation’s 25 million small businesses a chance to use the same online tools as the big boys.

Second, Office Live Small Business has all the hallmarks of a start-up: innovative, focused, fast-moving, game-changing, quick to respond to customer feedback and nimble in recovering from mistakes. When was the last time anyone described Microsoft that way?

中小企业时代来临

微软为其提供了一个像大公司一样使用在线工具的机会

大卫·波格（David Pogue） 文

这就是为什么微软要恶意收购雅虎。

事情真的发展到这种地步了吗？微软的创新引擎已经熄火，以至于不得不靠收购其他公司来寻求增长。

从某种程度上来看这很可悲，因为在现有的情况下，微软或其某些业务部门，仍然有能力创造出全新的、完美的产品。这家公司就像一棵日渐衰败的巨大的红杉树，在深山老林里慢慢腐烂。但是一片颓败之上还有Windows/Office产品线这片绿叶，证明即使严重的官僚主义让他们头重脚轻，迈不开沉重的步子，创新 仍然没有消失。

周一发布的针对中小企业的在线工具第2版，再一次鲜明地体现了新/旧微软之间的区别。

Office Live引人注目

Office Live中小企业版如此引人注目的原因在于它专注于解决一个简单的问题：美国半数的中小企业，和70%的一人公司都没有网站。显然，电子邮件快讯、搜索引擎广告和电子商务的使用比例更低。

假设你是他们中的一员，经营训练宠物狗、翻译文档、修饰照片、在eBay上卖饰品或者制作贝克饰品的买卖。而目前，你所谓的营销还仅限于在杂货店里贴点广告。

如何建立自己的网站？谁来帮你设计页面？谁给你提供服务器？你找谁去投放搜索引擎广告？你又怎么知道这些广告有效呢？你如何能避免发出去的电子邮件快讯不被反垃圾邮件程序挡在收件箱外？你怎么能知道这些钱花得值不值？

最重要的是：这些事将耗费你多少精力？

Office Live中小企业版（O.L.S.B.）是一个集成式的工具包，你可以从中获得所有你需要的东西——网站、在线广告、电子邮件推广、内部通信——完全靠你 自己，即使你不怎么懂技术。这些一流的工具是你触手可及的，因为你不需要额外雇人来操作，也因为大部分工具都是免费的。

新版本相对于2006年的最初版本有非常明显的改善。以前你建立的网站必须使用IE浏览，而现在Firefox也可以浏览了。这意味着即使你用苹果电脑也一样可以使用Office Live。这才是新的微软。

使用Office Live的时候也不再需要信用卡。你只需要提供名字、电子邮件地址和邮政编码就可以开始使用这些服务。

Office Live将不再使用不同产品版本不同价格的定价策略，那是老微软的方式（例如Windows Vista）。取而代之的是，一套包含了多种工具的免费服务包，和许多可选的收费附加服务。

免费的服务包包含一个网站和500兆的存储空间。即使你没有任何建立网站的经验，你仍然可以利用服务包中的工具，选择自己喜欢的颜色、主题、标识、图片、链 接等等，做出简洁的页面。（你可以看看这些案例，whineranddiner.net，murphyoutdoors.com， ameliascakes.com——都是由Office Live的用户建立的站点）

微软不仅为你的网站提供免费空间，还提供免费的分析工具。只要点击一下，你就可以形象地看到自己网站的流量数据、访问来源（例如来自搜索引擎还是外部链接），甚至是访问者所使用的浏览器。

以前需要付费的一些Office Live组件现在免费了。例如以前只有付费用户才可以将Office Live中的地址簿和日历与Outlook中的同步，以便于在没有网络接入条件的时候工作，而现在这些都是免费的。

同样，如果以前你想自己（或者雇用别人）使用微软的工具来制作网页，你需要付费，而现在也免费了。另外，你还可以用你自己公司的标识替换网站上Office Live的标识——令人欣喜的变化。

旧的版本还包括一些其他的技术组件：用来管理员工、企业资源等内容的管理员工具、项目跟踪时间表、文档共享模块、公司内部的协作工具，现在这些全都是免费的。

微软从何处盈利

不幸的是，羊毛总是出在羊身上。

旧版本中最著名的组件是免费注册域名，就是赠送一个你想要的.com域名——例如bobsfleabag.com——同时还赠送25个以你的域名为后缀的电子邮件地址（sales@bobsfleabag.com、info@bobsfleabag.com等等）。

现在，这些额外的优惠都已经没有了。第一年的免费期之后，微软将对域名和以该域名为后缀的邮箱收取每年15美元的费用（至少是对新用户）。如果你不付费，你 的网站将使用一个非常拙劣的域名，例如bobsfleabag.accommodations.officelice.com。

微软还有其他的方法从这些服务中盈利。

例如，在Office Live网站制作工具中有一些广告（在这些工具里，而不是在你的网站上）。因为这些广告是针对你这样的中小企业主的需要而定制的，所以并不惹人厌，人们也 并不介意看到这些广告，就像在一本摄影杂志上看到的相机广告一样。而微软可以向广告主收取更多的费用，因为这些广告是精准投放的。

Office Live还包含了一个简单易用的电子邮件营销系统，包括电子邮件快讯的设计和邮件地址数据库。你可以跟踪你的电子邮件发送效果：有多少人打开了你的邮件， 有多少人点击了其中的链接。这些电子邮件是微软替你发出的，所以不用担心会被你自己的防火墙当成垃圾邮件而发不出去。在测试阶段这些是免费的，但是以后微 软将每月收取一定的费用。

除了强大的网站建设功能，Office Live还包含了一个与eBay结合的电子商务系统。该系统可以自动帮你计算发货量甚至应交税款（根据买家的区域不同来分别计算）。但是，要使用该功能你 需要每月支付40美金的额外费用，如果要使用PayPal接受信用卡支付你还需要多支付30美元的PayPal使用费。（否则，你的买家就需要到 PayPal.com去转账。）PayPal从每笔交易中收取交易额的3%。

但是，投放搜索引擎广告是需要付费的。同样，Office Live可以帮助你跟踪广告投放情况，清晰地显示你的广告效果是不是达到了预期。

然而，这也是Office Live最不讨人喜欢的部分。你只能在微软的Live Search和Ask.com上投放广告，而这两个搜索引擎总共的市场占有率还不到8%。如果要投放搜索引擎广告，你首选的一定是这个市场中的两大巨头 ——雅虎和谷歌——不幸的是Office Live不支持二者。

现在，有很多公司提供类似的服务：例如网站服务器、在线营销等等。但是微软声称这些都无法对Office Live形成威胁。Office Live是唯一一套针对中小企业的一站式自助网络工具——至少在这个价格水平上是。

总之，有两个原因让你对Office Live感到足够兴奋：首先，Office Live中小企业版为全美2500万家中小企业提供了一个像大公司一样使用在线工具的机会。

其次，Office Live部门拥有所有创业公司的特制：创新、专注、灵活、极具革命性、能够快速相应用户需求，并实现敏捷开发。微软最后一次被这样形容是什么时候的事？