Judging by its growth in May, Microsoft Office Live will pass 100,000 users early in July. Though still in beta, Office Live is growing almost as fast as established services like Yahoo’s Small Business web hosting offering.

May 29, 2006—After an initial burst when Microsoft removed the wait list at the beginning of April, Office Live registrations have stabilized to a more constant rate during May. According to data from Ipwalk, on May 26, Office Live had 73,843 domain names tied to its service. This is a good indication of the amount of registered users since a domain name is included in the package. If the current rate of registrations remains the same, Office Live will pass 100,000 users during the first half of July this year.

Just like Yahoo’s Small Business web hosting offering, Microsoft is aiming its Office Live service primarily at small businesses.

“Our initial offerings on www.OfficeLive.com are designed for the technologically most underserved segment of the market, the very small businesses with less than 10 employees,” said Baris Cetinok, director of product management and marketing for Office Live, in an interview with Ipwalk. “The majority of our current customers on Microsoft Office Live are small businesses and we will continue to deliver additional services to address their business needs around Sales & Marketing, Business Management, Communications and more.”

To put the growth of Office Live into perspective, here is an example. The second week in May, Office Live gained 3,830 domain names, while Yahoo gained 7,780. All Office Live domain names are the result of a new user, while Yahoo also offers domain name registrations to existing users. That means that when it comes to gaining new users, Office Live is closer to Yahoo Small Business than it may seem at first glance.

Office Live registrations are currently held back by the fact that the service is in beta and available only to US residents. According to Cetinok, Office Live should come out of beta by the end of 2006, and will expand internationally after that. As the service matures, goes international, and becomes more heavily marketed, registrations will pick up significantly.

Up-to-date information on the current number of domain names connected to Office Live can be found on Ipwalk’s Office Live watch page: http://www.ipwalk.com/general/show_news/id/11

For more information, please contact;
Peter Alguacil, Ipwalk AB, +46-21-124248, peter@ipwalk.com

About Ipwalk:
Ipwalk is a global information company providing statistics based on a continuously updated database. Ipwalk is processing and analyzing more than 60 million domain names and 50 million IP addresses on a daily basis. This information is provided through the Ipwalk.com website and through customized trend reports. Find out more at http://www.ipwalk.com.