SaaS Week

In a not terribly unexpected move, Microsoft has announced plans to offer hosted versions of its Exchange server and SharePoint software, as well as a product called Office Communications Server and a SaaS version of security tool Forefront. The move is a response to increasing competitions from on-demand rivals, such as Google Apps, and is sure to be an interesting addition to the array of SaaS offerings on the marketplace.

The SaaS offerings will be available only to customers buying 5000 or more seats, said Microsoft product management director Eron Kelly in a PC World article. The same article pointed out the interesting challenges Microsoft faces in making these sorts of SaaS forays, given that Microsoft wants to avoid competing with its partners, which primarily target smaller companies, but by targeting larger organizations may antagonize resellers and systems integrators that prefer on-premise software due to greater upfront revenue and upsell opportunities.

Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet reported on an additional announcement by Microsoft that particularly targeted competition by Google Docs, which is Office Live Workspace -- a new online feature of MS Office that allows for document collaboration and online storage by consumers and small-business users. Office Live Workspace is not truly a SaaS offering, given that anyone using it must install Microsoft Office rather than access it through a Web browser, but it will reportedly allow for online collaboration -- one of the benefits played up by Google for its Google Apps. Foley reported that Microsoft is taking sign-ups from prospective beta testers starting today, with the beta scheduled to launch in about a month. The service will be free.

CRN's Steven Burke wasn't buying the hype at all and today posted an article on five reasons Google Docs beats Office Live Workspace, lambasting the Microsoft option for not allowing document creation and editing within a Web page, among other reasons.

To add another twist to the growing SaaS competition in the word processing and office document space, Adobe Systems announced that it would buy a company called Virtual Ubiquity, which developed the Buzzword word processor. The tool works online or off, in a browser or on a desktop, as Andy Patrizio of InternetNews.com reports.