Blog and web hosting changes
You may have noticed the Koru blog changed platforms.
This happened because MS is deprecating its Live Spaces blog platform and encouraging people to migrate to wordpress.com
I have no complaints. The migration went fine for me and the new platform is one of the best around.
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/welcome-windows-live-spaces-bloggers/
On a related note the recent MS Office 365 product announcements included some notes that the MS Office Live Small Business product would be going away in late 2011. So it looks like the rest of my web hosting will need a change too.
OLSB customers can upgrade/migrate to the cheapest Office 365 product which runs $6 per month per email address.
My Thoughts:
I think it makes sense for MS to drive OLSB customers into the OL365 product but it requires rethinking my recommendations.
I recommended OLSB largely because it was free, because the online web editor was simple enough for non technical users, and because it integrated with MS Live Essentials software or Outlook (which gives you locally sync’d contacts and calendar).
On the free end of the spectrum are 2 services I need to familiarize myself with: Google Apps Standard and WordPress.
Google Apps Standard Edition still provides free email and webhosting. So they might become the new freemium recommendation. You have to pay for Google Apps Premier Edition to get locally sync’d calendar and contacts into Outlook. I wasn’t impressed with the Google Sites web editor.
WordPress offers free hosting and may be simple enough for non technical users to update their websites. I need to check this.
On the paying end of the spectrum you will have MS office live at $~72/yr/email vs. Google at $50/yr/email.
By the way, Google Apps Premier Edition is free for schools and non-profits. So that may be a no-brainer for such organizations.
