Microsoft Gets Together With GoDaddy For Office 365 Rollout

Microsoft has announced recent a partnership with GoDaddy that aims to bring Office 365 to more small businesses.  The move to a subscription model for Microsoft’s Office suite was a huge step for Microsoft, and so far it’s looking like it has been worth it. By November 2013, the service had already signed up over 2 million paying customers.

GoDaddy says it currently has about 12 million small business customers, so this new partnership may potentially increase the length of Microsoft’s goals for Office 365 by a substantial amount.

The new plans for Office 365 start at a very reasonable, $3.99 per month/user for 2GB of space on SkyDrive and 5GB of email storage. A mid-range Business Essentials plan with 25GB on SkyDrive and 50GB of email storage costs $8.99 and includes support for Microsoft Lync and has access to the online versions of the Office apps.

For $3.5 more, the best deal is the Productivity Plus plan for $12.49, which includes complete access to Office 365, including the desktop apps, which can be authorised on up to 5 PCs and Macs, as well as access to the mobile apps on Windows Phone, iPhone and Android. All of the plans available include live customer service.

Microsoft has made similar partnerships previously as it also offers Office 365 plans through Verizon and Sprint, which have basically the same plans available as GoDaddy although for a slightly higher price.

It is interesting to note however that the GoDaddy partnership with Microsoft will reach potential new customers at a time when these ones are already thinking about hosting. To add a cheap Office 365 email plan to their accounts then becomes almost something inconsequential, especially given that the integration between the two firms will mean they can use their custom domains from GoDaddy with Office 365 with ease.

[Image via egilia]

SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/13/microsoft-partners-with-godaddy-to-bring-office-365-to-more-small-businesses/