Free Domain Names, So What! Stay Away From Microsoft Office Live

I can’t recall any other company emotionally toying with me the way Microsoft does. This past weekend I was speaking with someone who told me how he was registering free domain names with Microsoft’s new release of Office Live.

The fact that Microsoft was offering free domain name registration I had to rush over and see how it all worked.

Microsoft’s marketing impresses me more than most companies. They really have a handle on who uses their products, how to price them (if they are priced), and how to describe their products to the customers.

As a case study I think any marketer would enjoy how Microsoft is promoting this software solution to new and small business owners. A few of their features include a Business Email address, free website hosting and the ability to promote your site using Keywords.

Now there really is no difference between a personal email address and a business one but calling their email a Business Email sounds like a valuable service. As most of us know, free web hosting and development is driven by an automated system that pushes out variety of standard templates leaving everyone who uses it with a similar looking website.

The idea of promoting ones website with Keywords sounds like something everyone needs. If I did not understand what Keywords were, I would think we would all want our websites to stand out with Keywords. Hell, we are talking about Keywords here.

On What’s new with Office Live I found for less then $40 a month I can track my project, customers and company information. I can share information easily. I can take part in Office Live adManager, which is a very kind solution for them to offer me. I can get my own personalized website, domain name, email and use their Website Creation Tools.

They offer the ability for me to stay productive while I am on the road. Again, it is very nice of them to let me use all these things while I am on the road. To top it off I get a free edition of Microsoft’s Accounting Express 2007.

At this point of reading about their products I was in love with Microsoft’s’ marketing. As I drilled down further I really wanted to see who Microsoft felt was their target audience for this product.

By clicking on the Track projects, customers and company information I can faintly see what kind of business related tasks these users will be performing and why they require the help of Microsoft Online.

1. Restock first aid kit – 1 week required
2. Research flight costs – 1 week required
3. Research ground transportation – 1 week required
4. Buy parking permit – 2 weeks required
5. Reserve camping site – 2 weeks required
6. Buy new hiking boots – 1 month required

Needless to say, I had to signup and poke my head around. If all else, I got a free domain out of it.

After signing up for the site, it took a few days to actually log in. The username and password did not work even though I knew exactly what username and password I registered with. Spending an hour on the phone solved this issue.

I spent a few minutes trying to create a website using their tools and I will honestly say this is one of the worst online applications I have ever tested. Hence the flipside to how Microsoft works.

They get an A+ for marketing the software solution to me and they get an F- for usability.

For the life of me I can not understand how they can get away with what they do on this product. Creating a unique website is all but impossible. You can forget about trying to add personalized HTML in any logical order. I could not even find a way to view or edit the pages Source Code.

In the test, I created a simple page with a handful of products and descriptions. When I made a mistake (which was every few seconds using this crappy software) I could not figure out how to go back and fix it. So I said screw it, I will build the webpage using Dreamweaver and upload it via FTP.

Sorry, no can do. They do not even offer the ability to FTP webpage’s up to our own site. God forbid I want to customize my webpage’s without using one of their tools! Needless to say I spent way to long trying to create a simple website with a slightly different feel to their standard templates.

What pisses me off the most is not the fact that this product sucks, which it does. What pissed me off is the fact that if you decide to use them you are completely stuck for several months.

Let’s just say you’re a new budding business entrepreneur and you are all ready with the domain name of your dreams. You have huge ideas about your website and you’ve been reading about all these great things Microsoft has to offer. Remember, they are offering us Keywords and all!

So you register your domain with them, log into their system and you realize how limited you are. You realize after spending a few long nights trying to get a simple image to align with some text that the dream of creating the perfect website has now turned into realty which is a huge headache.

You then figure it might be worth transferring the domain name away from Microsoft and on to a new host.

After trying to get someone live on the telephone you learn that even if you wanted to move the domain name to another host, a host that will actually give you the ability to work on your own site without any restrictions, you can not because Microsoft keeps the domain name locked for a minimum of 2 months.

Microsoft support explains that this is how all domain registrars’ work. So you think about raising the white flag in defeat but before you do you offer them some extra money to point the DNS to another ISP. They decline this offer.

This is a warning to all that are considering using Office Live. If you decide you do not like the service, tough! You are stuck with them hosting your new domain name for at least 2 months.

And for anyone of you thinking about gaming the Office Live offer, consider this. When signing up for the free domain name, you must enter a valid credit card. They say this is required because:

Microsoft wants to help mitigate fraud and strives to ensure that the Web sites we provide for our small business customers are for valid purposes. Requiring a valid credit card is intended to decrease the likelihood that malicious users will sign up.

Web site scams, such as “phishing” or spamming, often use fictitious Web sites to deceive consumers into disclosing credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security numbers, passwords, or other sensitive information. We limit the number of offers to one per credit card number as added protection against malicious users signing up for our service.

We also require a credit card to facilitate payment of services during the beta (e.g., the purchase of additional domain names) as well as at the conclusion of the beta period, when customers will be asked if they would like to continue using our services on a paid, monthly subscription basis. With your explicit permission, we can establish monthly billing using your credit card information. You will be able to continue using our services without interruption and without having to submit additional account information.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 6:25 pm and is filed under SEO / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.