Domain name company, GoDaddy, will offer Office 365 email and productivity services to its small-business customers, after signing a long-term partnership with Microsoft.
The two companies have created a simple way to attach Office 365 to a domain name from GoDaddy, with the aim of helping small-businesses to work anywhere and look more professional, GoDaddy said on Monday.
GoDaddy will offer three packages for small enterprises that cost $US3.99, $US8.99 and $US12.49 per month, per user, with an annual contract.
The cheapest package is called Email Essentials and it includes 5GB of email storage and 2GB of hosted storage via Microsoft SkyDrive Pro. Users can to sync email, calendar and contacts across all their devices.
The second option is Business Essentials, which includes 50GB of email storage and 25GB of SkyDrive Pro storage. Users get sync features plus file sharing and online file collaboration functions; unlimited online meetings and HD video conferencing; and Office Web Apps with online versions of Word and Excel.
The most feature-rich version is called Productivity Plus. In addition to the features mentioned above, it also includes Office Mobile Apps for Android, Windows Phone and Apple's iPhones as well as Microsoft Office for up to five PCs or Macs.
Office 365 from GoDaddy is currently available in the U.S. and Canada, but will expand globally within the next three months.
This isn't the first time the two companies have worked together. In October, Microsoft announced that users could purchase a custom GoDaddy domain name directly from within Office 365 that then would be automatically configured.
For small business that are considering adopting either Office 365 or the competing Google Apps, Infoworld recently published a through review of the two.
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