Microsoft to launch Office Live beta: "Microsoft is set to announce a free beta of its Office Live service for small businesses tomorrow and said it hopes to garner more than 100,000 beta users for it. Microsoft will announce the free beta of its upcoming Office Live service for small businesses tomorrow and said it hopes to garner more than 100,000 beta users for it.
The premium versions of the Office Live service will likely cost less than the monthly bill for a cable broadband Internet subscription, the company said.

First announced last November by Microsoft's in-house software-as-a-service guru, Ray Ozzie, Office Live is a bit of a misnomer: The service does not replicate any of the features of Microsoft's Office suite of productivity software. Instead, it is, for now, a repackaging of services formerly offered via the MSN portal but targeted at small businesses.