A Web Site to Call Your Own - New York Times

Read this full NYT review for details on Office Live. 

Microsoft makes vigorous privacy promises, but there’s no countering this emotional argument. If the creepiness of letting someone else host your data outweighs Office Live’s enormous value, then that’s the end of the conversation.

But if you have a small business — if you run a dance studio, sell hand-made bracelets on eBay, deal in old comic books, whatever — at least have the conversation. In Office Live, Microsoft has vaporized a number of obstacles that once stood between tiny start-ups and the big time: the cost and hassle of establishing a proper Web site, the complexity and expense of playing the search-engine ad game, and the headache of maintaining proper books.

Best of all, Microsoft makes money from all this in only one situation: if it helps turn your small business into a bigger one.

Source: A Web Site to Call Your Own - New York Times