Stop Buying Servers » small business http://stopbuyingservers.com Cloud Computing for Small Business Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:31:11 +0000 en hourly 1 There’s no such thing as a free domain http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-domain/ http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-domain/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:40:46 +0000 David Schrag http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-domain/ Microsoft Office Live Small Business used to offer a free Internet domain for their users. As of October 1, 2009, this freebie goes bye-bye. Domains up for renewal after that date will only be renewed if you pay $14.95 a year. Although I’m never crazy about paying for something that used to be free, I will at least give Microsoft credit for:

  1. Making the annual charge reasonable rather than gouging their existing customers.
  2. Not pretending that the Office Live Small Business service will somehow be enhanced or that this is anything but a way for Microsoft to earn more (or lose less) money.

My guess is that Microsoft has determined that a huge number of people signed up for the Office Live Small Business service simply because it was free, and that Microsoft has no desire to keep paying the ICANN fees for folks who aren’t even using the service (like yours truly).

I learned a new term today for the practice of giving something away at first and charging for it later: “freemium.” It’s hardly a new concept. Drug dealers have been using this model forever.

]]> http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/09/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-domain/feed/ 0 “New way” of doing things involves cloud computing http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/07/new-way-of-doing-things-involves-cloud-computing/ http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/07/new-way-of-doing-things-involves-cloud-computing/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:22:22 +0000 David Schrag http://stopbuyingservers.com/2009/07/new-way-of-doing-things-involves-cloud-computing/ In this article for small businesses, Lesley Spencer Pyle recommends five services for common small business tasks:

  • BaseCamp for project management
  • Box.net for file sharing
  • SnapPages.com for web design (I hadn’t heard of this one before)
  • Google Docs for word processing
  • Google Voice for phone call management
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