Office Live Small Business to be discontinued...help

jediquigley

I have received the email below to say this service is being discontinued, has anyone else received this email? i was a bit dubious that it was real. i will loose my website if this happens which it took me a long to construct and i love that its free.


Office Live Small Business will be
discontinued on 30 April 2012
Transition to Office 365 todayLaura,

Get ready today
There are some steps you need to take to prepare your website, %%Domain%%, to transition to Office 365. We strongly recommend that you start preparing for the self-transition by 31 March 2012. To get started, follow the steps outlined in the self-transition guide.

Get your free offer
If you have not yet begun your exclusive 6 month free trial of Microsoft® Office 365 for professionals and small businesses and Office Professional Plus, start your trial now.
Sign in to redeem your personalised, one-time use promotion code

Office 365 offers many enhancements for professionals and small businesses like yours including tools and services such as:



Microsoft Office Web Apps: Outlook®, Word, Excel®, PowerPoint®, and OneNote®.
Professional-looking email with protection against spam and viruses, and a larger mailbox to store more messages.
Improved tools for editing and writing documents with your co-workers.
Online meeting and instant messaging (IM) capabilities.
Simple tools for building or managing your business website.
The latest version of Office 2010 desktop applications.


To take advantage of this offer, sign into your Office Live Small Business account to get your personalised promotion code. The standard trial period is 30 days, but your unique promo code gives you access to 6 months.

When your free trial is over, you'll be able to purchase a subscription to Office 365 for professionals and small businesses and Office Professional Plus (domain renewal charges are not included in the Office 365 subscription.)

Need help?
Get answers to your questions by reading the transition FAQ. Get help transitioning to Office 365 by visiting the Office Live Small Business Community (English only) or contact Office Live Small Business Support for free. You can also find and hire a partner to help you with the transition.

Thank you for being an Office Live Small Business customer.

Sincerely,
Office Live Small Business Team

Please note: If you do not transition your subscription, your Office Live Small Business customised email account and website will be deactivated and all content will be deleted after 30 April 2012. There are many website hosting providers that you can choose if Office 365 does not meet your business needs.

charlysez

these emails have been coming out for weeks, its a real pain. i have been reading their self transition pages for a couple of days where they openly admit its difficult to do!!

i am not technical and am quite worried about how to keep my website going, osm is offering 6mths free but i cannot find what the fees will be after that time.

i think its going to effect millions of people and cause caos and confusion across the small business population.

steve1980

I would be looking at speaking to web designers etc or looking at hosting costs and designing yourself.

BryanSmallBiz

Yes, I believe it's for real.
You only mention your website as being a particular issue for you so how about moving to Google's free hosting option? Much as you love your existing website being free where it is, you're now getting the service from the provider that you're paying for.

jediquigley

a friend of mine is in the same position and thinks it will cost £4 month following the 6 month trial

As for paying website designers i just cant afford it, i have a full time job as a secretary then run a nutritional therapy business, i see about 4 clients a month which i dont make a lot of money on. plus i am on a budget at the moment as i am due to have a baby in july and taking 11 months mat leave.

might try this free trial or googles option........goes anyone else use google? if so what is your website address just so i can see how it looks......

many thanks

Laura

steve1980

GBBO is the Google option and is actually worse than Microsofts!

AbbieCadabra

we've had our business website with office live since 2009 & i too went into a mild panic when i received the email a couple of weeks ago!

after a short time searching for info i decided to have a go at a free website with wordpress.com. i'd already got the content from our original site so it was just a case of getting up to speed with their system. i found it way easier than the original set up with office live, i did have a few questions that i asked on their help forums & these were answered very quickly with helpful replies.

re-directed the domain settings today with fasthosts & within the hour our new wordpress website was 'live'! very impressed & all it cost was a little time & $12 USD for 1 year domain mapping with wordpress.

it might not suit all business needs, but we only need a presence on the web for reference. i believe you can go a little more in-depth with a site on wordpress.org that allows more SEO etc. type detail to be added.

am

Google Apps is the best online productivity suite IMO. It will be interesting to see how Office365 compares in terms of pricing going forward.

jediquigley

i have transferred my wesbite to 365 by reading through microsoft guide which they provided and watching a youtube video they recommended - it took me about 3 hours altogether - but just to put peoples mind at rest you can do it yourself.

i am going to see how much they will be charging after the 6 month free trial and reassess the situation again

Archiebear

I work for a small charity and we too have been using Office Live for emails and our website. Causing us no end of grief to change everything over.

For a free website you might try weebly.com ...I've had a play with this and you get a really good site with very little hassle (i.e you don't need a degree in I.T!)

steve1980

jediquigley wrote: »

i have transferred my wesbite to 365 by reading through microsoft guide which they provided and watching a youtube video they recommended - it took me about 3 hours altogether - but just to put peoples mind at rest you can do it yourself.

i am going to see how much they will be charging after the 6 month free trial and reassess the situation again

£48.00 per annum