capossela

SAN FRANCISCO--The 365 in Microsoft's new Office 365 may not represent the number of different versions, but there sure are a lot of different options for the new subscription Office suite.

Small businesses, those with 25 or fewer employees, have it simplest, with a $6 per worker per month option that includes Office Web Apps, along with hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Larger businesses can choose from products anywhere from $2 to $27 per person per month. At the low-end, businesses get hosted e-mail, while for $4 a month they can also get SharePoint.

A version comparable to the $6 small-business plan will cost larger outfits $16 per month per employee. The options that include the traditional desktop Office suite, in addition to the slimmed down Office Web Apps, start at $24 per worker per month.

For options that include desktop Office, businesses can allow workers to install the suite on up to five machines--including their home PCs. The service will check around every 60 days to make sure a subscription is current; if it isn't, Office will shrink its features to a "limited functionality" that basically includes viewing, but not editing capabilities.

Microsoft is touting the choices as one of its key advantages over rival Google Docs.

"The key to our approach is that we don't think it is a 'one size fit all' (market)," Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said in an interview. Starbucks, for example, he said can offer a low-end version to its store workers that aren't at a PC, while giving the higher end options to those at headquarters.

"We find that by having a variety of offers, we're actually able to give customers the choice they need to pick the right technology for the different workers in their company."

Google, for its part, really has two main options--the free consumer versions of Gmail and Google Docs and a paid version, known as Google Apps, for which it charges $50 per worker per year. Both companies also have options for the education and nonprofit market.

Perhaps the good news is that workers won't really have to worry about the myriad options until next year. The company said that the final version will come sometime next year, but Capossela declined to be more specific. … Read more

Just because Office 14 won't be fully released until next year doesn't mean consumers will have to wait that long to try out the products.

In an interview this week Senior Vice President Chris Capossela said that Microsoft will offer more details on the beta "relatively soon," noting that Office has traditionally made its products available to millions of testers well before the final version ships.

"That's been true of the suite," he said. "That will certainly be true of the suite this time and of the Web apps."

With Office … Read more

So here are a few tidbits from my notebooks that didn't make it into our stories from Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver.

In addition to talking about some potential new business models for Office, corporate VP Chris Capossela also noted that Microsoft is planning a fall launch for its Office Communications Server business telephony product as well as its PerformancePoint business intelligence software.

The company still hopes to finish the code for both products by late summer, he said. Speaking of launch dates, as spotted by Mary Jo Foley, the next version of SQL Server won't be ready … Read more