Microsoft has made a new move designed to kick its online services up a notch. Chairman Bill Gates announced at the annual Microsoft Office SharePoint Conference that the company is pressing on with its software plus services strategy. A step further in this context was to open up Microsoft Online Services, initially designed for large corporations to businesses of all sizes. A Beta trial of the new services went live as of March, but the testing program is limited for the time being, and requests for participation are accepted only from U.S.-based companies.

"The combination of software plus services gives customers advanced choice and flexibility in how they access and manage software. With Microsoft Online Services, businesses can deploy software as a subscription service, from servers they manage on-site, or a combination of the two, depending on their specific needs. In the future, customers and partners should expect to see this kind of choice and flexibility for all of Microsoft's software and server products," Gates revealed.

With the Exchange Online and SharePoint Online going into beta, Microsoft is now capable of permitting business customers to access and manage a variety of services over the Web. The new Microsoft Online Services feature everything from email to calendaring, contacts, webconferencing and videoconferencing, and even shared workspaces, all of them online.

The latest stage in the evolution of Microsoft Online Services comes after almost half a year since the debut of the offerings for businesses numbering in excess of 5,000 users. Autodesk, Blockbuster, Ceridian, Coca-Cola Enterprises and Energizer Holdings are some of the business customers enumerated by the Redmond company that have already jumped aboard the Microsoft Online Services wagon.

"The new services are managed through a single Web-based interface, designed to meet the needs of IT professionals. Through this security-enhanced interface, IT professionals can monitor the performance of the services, add and configure users, submit and track support requests, and manage users and licenses," Microsoft added.