With the U.S. economy not exactly booming, Microsoft is pointing to Office Live Small Business for the right source of answers. The software giant's Office Live Small Business is a service designed to permit small and midsize companies to develop an online business. In  Microsoft's perspective, its unified Cloud-based service for small businesses contains not only the right toolkit to enable clients to easily build an Internet presence, but is also offering a selection of guidance to help with tasks such as marketing and customer management. And with Office Live Small Business positioned as a sturdy ship in an economic storm, Microsoft is in fact telling small businesses it's time to invest, albeit carefully, and cutting as much costs as possible.

“It may seem counterintuitive, but increased marketing and sales activity can be an effective way to bolster your business and weather economic storms.” In fact, marketing is a key component to your small business’ survival,” explained Rieva Lesonsky, former editor of Entrepreneur and blogger for Microsoft Office Live Small Business.

The service makes available a wide range of resources from free web domain, as well as email and e-commerce applications, to management and marketing solutions. At the same time, Microsoft is also delivering advice to users of Office Live Small Business. Lesonsky, for example, is telling entrepreneurs not to cut back on marketing, but to cut back on nonessentials, set up special offerings for referrals and increase their negotiating skills.

“Increasingly, consumers are using the Web to find businesses of all sizes, so it’s really crucial that small businesses be visible online in order to compete. Today, there are a number of low- or no-cost options to help entrepreneurs establish a professional Web presence without the expense of hiring a designer or Web master. Microsoft Office Live Small Business provides entrepreneurs with a free Web site and hosting, a custom domain name and business e-mail free for the first year, low-cost e-commerce and online marketing tools, and free business management tools,” Lesonsky added.