Microsoft Office Live Launches Partner Programme, Helps Partners Reach Small Businesses

DENVER, July 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Partners benefit from online marketplace, greater access to customers
and new affiliate network.

Microsoft(R) Office Live is making it easy for partners to build and
showcase web-based and hybrid solutions and services that specifically
address the unique needs of small businesses, opening a door to a
hard-to-reach market segment. This new programme offers a Microsoft Office
Live developer platform, the Microsoft Office Live Marketplace, a new
Microsoft Office Live Affiliate Network Pilot and greater access to the
Microsoft Office Live customer base. Marja Koopmans, director of partner
strategy for Microsoft Office Live at Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq: MSFT), will
unveil this new programme at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)
in Denver on 11 July 2007, at 3pm.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)

"There are 25.8 million small businesses in the US alone, according to
the according to US Small Business Administration," Koopmans said. "That
represents a huge potential market segment for web developers and designers,
IT support providers, and our sales and marketing partners. However, because
small businesses are such a diverse group, smaller companies have
traditionally been difficult for our partners to reach. The Office Live
Partner Program helps enable our partners to have direct access to this
large, growing market."

The following are among the new and enhanced features in the Office Live
Partner Program:

-- Microsoft Office Live developer platform. Based on research and 
       feedback from partners that participated in the Early Adopter Program, 
       Office Live has further invested in the technical platform and 
       resources to support partners during the training and development 
       cycles.

    -- Microsoft Office Live Marketplace. The recently unveiled Microsoft 
       Office Live Marketplace (http://www.officelive.com/marketplace) 
       enables developers to market their solutions and services to more than 
       400,000 existing customers and prospective customers and promote their 
       unique offerings. Microsoft Office Live features more than 50 
       offerings worldwide in the marketplace and hopes to expand that number 
       over the next year. 

    -- Greater access to Microsoft Office Live customers. Beginning in 
       January 2008, Microsoft Office Live will extend the solution and 
       service platform capabilities to the complete Microsoft Office Live 
       customer base of more than 400,000 customers that use the advertising-
       supported and subscription-based products. 

    -- Microsoft Office Live Affiliate Network Pilot. A new affiliate 
       programme will be available to Small Business Specialist Community 
       partners as well as Microsoft Certified Partners and Microsoft Gold 
       Certified Partners in 2008, allowing them to share in Microsoft Office 
       Live subscription revenue and advertising spending by referring new 
       customers.

    -- Partner case studies. The Microsoft Office Live platform, built on    
       Windows(R) SharePoint(R) Services 3.0, allows partners to tailor their 
       existing solutions and services for the small-business community, 
       build new industry-specific ones for key verticals, or offer targeted, 
       horizontal solutions. Since its debut in November 2006, Microsoft 
       Office Live has captured the attention of more than 400,000 small 
       businesses in five countries with its web hosting and business 
       management tools.

"Microsoft Office Live is an ideal platform for us because it enables
real-time, central storage of data and the security of hosting on Microsoft
servers," said Joe McDermott, managing director of Solution Canvas Ltd. "With
our new Office Live solution, justia, small law firms can now get access to a
sophisticated practice development solution usually reserved for larger
firms."

Microsoft Office Live also provides an opportunity for web designers to
help small businesses design their website, enabling them to overcome the
existing barriers to the online world such as lack of time and IT support.
One such partner is WebSite Pros, which enables customers to outsource their
website design to a professional design and marketing services agency.

Partners attending WWPC will include the following:

-- KnowledgeLake Inc is a Microsoft Gold Certified independent software 
       vendor with document imaging and capture software for Microsoft 
       SharePoint Services. It creates a simple desktop scanning solution for 
       Office Live. The award-winning Fujitsu ScanSnap integrates its 
       scanning capabilities with the highly functional KnowledgeLake Connect 
       capture software and allows small businesses to scan their paper 
       documents quickly into an Office Live Customer Workspace.

    -- PC Rescue of Texas has created a new solution to help real estate 
       agents and brokers keep all their account information in one 
       security-enhanced location. Building on the Microsoft Office Live 
       platform, this solution ensures access to client-critical information 
       from anywhere with internet access. It also enables agents to rest 
       easy that their sensitive data is stored centrally, no matter what 
       happens to their computer.

    -- RingCentral Inc is helping small businesses stay connected with their 
       customers.  Integrating with Office Live, the company's fully featured 
       phone and fax service provides users with a single entry point to 
       manage their business, including toll-free and local numbers with 
       multiple extensions and dial-by-name directory, click-to-call, 
       worldwide call routing, visual voicemail, internet, fax, and much 
       more. The RingCentral service is affordable and easy to use, requires 
       no hardware, and can be activated instantly at 
       http://www.ringcentral.com.

    -- Solution Canvas is a Glasgow, Scotland-based Microsoft Gold Certified 
       Partner that uses the Microsoft Office Live platform to host justia, a 
       powerful practice management system for small legal firms. justia 
       offers a cost-effective solution that provides improved financial 
       control and an umbrella view of client activities for smaller law 
       firms that are trying keep costs down.

More information about these partners and Office Live is available at
http://www.officelive.com.

About Microsoft Office Live

Microsoft Office Live is a complete, affordable set of easy-to-use
internet-based software and services that helps small businesses attract new
customers, keep in touch with existing customers and easily manage their
business from any location. Office Live helps small businesses establish a
professional web presence, stay in touch with their customers, and easily
access company information from one complete online location. For more
information, please log onto http://www.officelive.com.

About the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

More information about the Worldwide Partner Conference is available on
the virtual event site at http://partner.microsoft.com/digitalwpc. Visitors
can watch select keynotes live or on demand, register to view sessions, and
learn more about the news and events coming out of the conference. The 
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference provides Microsoft's partner community 
with access to key marketing and business strategies, leadership, and 
information regarding specific customer solutions designed to help partners 
succeed in the marketplace. Along with informative learning opportunities 
covering sales, marketing, services and technology, the Worldwide Partner 
Conference is an ideal setting for partners to garner valuable knowledge from 
their peers and from Microsoft. More information can be found at 
http://www.microsoft.com/partner/events/wwpartnerconference and
https://partner.microsoft.com.

About Microsoft

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and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential.

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